Quote

Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.

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
Goal
Crumble
Means
Survives
Often
Structures
Ends
Advance
Mean
Justify
Even
Goals
Technique
Structure

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Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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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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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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Any noun 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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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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