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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
Word
Language
Every
English

More quotes by 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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Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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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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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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
Alan Perlis
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A picture is worth 10K words - but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.
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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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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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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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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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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Optimization hinders evolution.
Alan Perlis
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
Alan Perlis
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
Alan Perlis
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Alan Perlis