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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.

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
Computing
Shorter
Keeps
Failure
Getting
Mean
Time

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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
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Every reader should ask himself periodically “Toward what end, toward what end?”—but do not ask it too often lest you pass up the fun of programming for the constipation of bittersweet philosophy.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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When someone says, I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done, give him a lollipop.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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