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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
Rococo
Rubble
Humorous
Program
Becomes
Running
Every
Long

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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
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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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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
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Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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