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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
Everything
Nothing
Lisp
Programmer
Programmers
Cost
Value
Values

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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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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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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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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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove 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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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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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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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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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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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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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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Every reader should ask himself periodically “Toward what end, toward what end?”—but do not ask it too often lest you pass up the fun of programming for the constipation of bittersweet philosophy.
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