Quote

One can only display complex information in the mind. Like seeing, movement or flow or alteration of view is more important than the static picture, no matter how lovely.

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
Movement
Static
Views
Display
Information
Complexes
Seeing
Complex
Matter
Lovely
Important
Picture
Mind
Flow
Alteration
Like
View
Alterations

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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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 computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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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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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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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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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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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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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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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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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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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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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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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 LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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