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In English every word can be verbed.

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
English
Word
Language
Every

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
Alan Perlis
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
Alan Perlis
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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
Alan Perlis
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis
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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
Alan Perlis
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
Alan Perlis
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
Alan Perlis
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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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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
Alan Perlis
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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?
Alan Perlis
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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
Alan Perlis
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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
Alan Perlis
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
Alan Perlis
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
Alan Perlis