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Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.

Alan Perlis

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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
Ones
Adapting
Means
Hardware
Mean
Programs
Like
Behave
Machines
Fit
Program
Usually

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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.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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The best book on programming for the layman is Alice in Wonderland, but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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