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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.

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
Informal
Proceed
Formal
Means
Mean

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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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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 good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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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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In English every word can be verbed.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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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.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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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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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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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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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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