Alan Perlis Quotes

“There is an appreciated substance to the phrase "ALGOL-like" which is often used in arguments about programming, languages and computation. ALGOL appears to be a durable model, and even flourishes under surgery — be it explorative, plastic, or amputative.”

“19: A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing.”

“16 Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.”

“I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don't become missionaries. Don't feel as if you're Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don't feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What's in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.”

“Both knowledge and wisdom extend man's reach. Knowledge led to computers, wisdom to chopsticks.”

“58: Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.”

“64: Often it is means that justify ends: Goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.”

“57: It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.”

“75: The computing field is always in need of new cliches: Banality sooths our nerves.”

“11: If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.”

“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.”

“101 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.”

“116: 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.”

“117: It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there to making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and, learning to be self-critical?”

“80: Prolonged contact with the computer turns mathematicians into clerks and vice versa.”

“8: A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.”

“55: LISP programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing.”

“Computer science is a restless infant and its progress depends as much on shifts in point of view as on the orderly development of our current concepts.”

“79: A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.”

“Programmers should never be satisfied with languages which permit them to program everything, but to program nothing of interest easily.”

“59: In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.”

“1: One man's constant is another man's variable.”

“39: 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.”

“95: Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.”

“41: Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.”

“42: You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.”

“This language [LISP] induces humorous arguments among programmers, often being damned and praised for the same feature.”

“We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.”