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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
More quotes by Alan Perlis
We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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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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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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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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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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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.
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?
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