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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.

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
Languages
Programming
English
Word
Language
Every
Would

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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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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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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One can only display complex information in the mind. Like seeing, movement or flow or alteration of view is more important than the static picture, no matter how lovely.
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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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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?
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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 is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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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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Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.
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