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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
Mean
Informal
Proceed
Formal
Means

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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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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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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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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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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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In English every word can be verbed.
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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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.
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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You think you KNOW when you learn, are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.
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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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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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