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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.

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
Men
Symbiosis
Adjust
Machine
Machines
Must

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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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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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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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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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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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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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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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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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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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