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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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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
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Last
Next
Fermat
Today
Theorem
Theorems
Verge
Proved
Program

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Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?
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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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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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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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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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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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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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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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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 English every word can be verbed.
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Every reader should ask himself periodically “Toward what end, toward what end?”—but do not ask it too often lest you pass up the fun of programming for the constipation of bittersweet philosophy.
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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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Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
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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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