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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.

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
Program
Understand
Write
Else
Someone
Writing

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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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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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by 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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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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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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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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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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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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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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Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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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.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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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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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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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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Any noun can be verbed.
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