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

Epigrams on Programming, 1982

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "8: A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant." by Alan Perlis?
Alan Perlis photo
Alan Perlis 30
American computer scientist 1922–1990

Related quotes

Paul Graham photo

“A programming language is for thinking of programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"Hackers and Painters" http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html, May 2003

Vernor Vinge photo
Alan Kay photo

“… greatest single programming language ever designed. (About the Lisp programming language.)”

Alan Kay (1940) computer scientist

2003. Daddy, Are We There Yet? A Discussion with Alan Kay http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2003/04/03/alan_kay.html
2000s

Larry Wall photo

“If you want to program in C, program in C. It's a nice language. I use it occasionally…”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[7577@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

Terry Pratchett photo

“My programming language was solder.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

On his early computers, from a talk "When I Were A Lad, We Used To Dream of 64K" at the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, Scotland, (August 2005)
General sources

Larry Wall photo

“If there's a particular problem that Perl is trying to solve, it's the basic fact that all programming languages suck. Sort of the concept of original sin, applied to programming languages.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

Public Talks, The State of the Onion 10

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

Alan Perlis (1922–1990) American computer scientist

The Synthesis of Algorithmic Systems, 1966

Related topics