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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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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
Graduate
Professor
Graduates
Professors
Computer
Compassion
Students
Science
Insists

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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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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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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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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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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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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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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.
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