Quote

One man's constant is another man's variable.

Alan Perlis

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alan Perlis
Age: 67 †
Born: 1922
Born: April 1
Died: 1990
Died: February 7
Computer Scientist
Mathematician
University Teacher
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Alan Jay Perlis
Alan J. Perlis
Programmers
Constant
Another
Men
Variable
Variables

More quotes by Alan Perlis

Image
A picture is worth 10K words - but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.
Alan Perlis
Image
I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
Alan Perlis
Image
Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
Image
Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
Image
Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.
Alan Perlis
Image
In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
Alan Perlis
Image
Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
Alan Perlis
Image
Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
Alan Perlis
Image
It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
Alan Perlis
Image
There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
Alan Perlis
Image
If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
Alan Perlis
Image
You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
Alan Perlis
Image
In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
Alan Perlis
Image
Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.
Alan Perlis
Image
In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
Alan Perlis
Image
Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
Alan Perlis
Image
FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
Alan Perlis
Image
Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?
Alan Perlis
Image
There is no such thing as a free variable.
Alan Perlis
Image
In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
Alan Perlis