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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.

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
Programmers
Cost
Value
Values
Everything
Nothing
Lisp
Programmer

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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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Optimization hinders evolution.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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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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I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
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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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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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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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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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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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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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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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