Quotes By Alan Perlis

In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.

Every program has two purposes: The one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.

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

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

Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.

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

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

Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.

In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word "frustration".

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

It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.

A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.

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

There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

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

If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.

Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.

LISP programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing.

Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.

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.

If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.

The computing field is always in need of new cliches.

It goes against the grain of modern education to teach students to program. What fun is there to making plans, acquiring discipline, organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self critical.

The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.

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

Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?