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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.

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
Tomorrow
Others
Today
Firsts
First
Work
Laboratory
Think
Motto
Thinking
Research

More quotes by 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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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
Alan Perlis
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
Alan Perlis
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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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One man's constant is another man's variable.
Alan Perlis
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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
Alan Perlis
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
Alan Perlis
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
Alan Perlis
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis
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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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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
Alan Perlis
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In English every word can be verbed.
Alan Perlis
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Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
Alan Perlis
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
Alan Perlis
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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.
Alan Perlis
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
Alan Perlis
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis