Alan Perlis Quotes

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

31: Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

3: Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.