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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.

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
Way
French
Horse
Humor
Learning
Word
Funny
Else
Trivial
Everything
Follows

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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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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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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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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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
Alan Perlis
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
Alan Perlis
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
Alan Perlis
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
Alan Perlis
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One man's constant is another man's variable.
Alan Perlis
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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
Alan Perlis
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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?
Alan Perlis
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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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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.
Alan Perlis
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
Alan Perlis
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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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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
Alan Perlis
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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
Alan Perlis