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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.

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
Humorous
Program
Becomes
Running
Every
Long
Rococo
Rubble

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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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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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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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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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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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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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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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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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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.
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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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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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