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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
Running
Every
Long
Rococo
Rubble
Humorous
Program
Becomes

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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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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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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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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.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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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 software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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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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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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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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It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
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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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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
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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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