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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
Symbiosis
Adjust
Machine
Machines
Must
Men

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Any noun can be verbed.
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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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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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
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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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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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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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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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