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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
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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
Time
Simplicity
Evolution
Except
Optimization
Built
Hinders
Doe
Precede
Firsts
Hinder
Everything
Follows
First
Complexity
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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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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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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