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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.

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
Programming
Error
Errors
Else
Everything
Reborn
Programmers

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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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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Optimization hinders evolution.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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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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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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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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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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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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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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You think you KNOW when you learn, are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.
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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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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
Alan Perlis