Alan J Perlis - Collected Quotes

"A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"A program without a loop and a structured variable isn’t worth writing." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Computers don’t introduce order anywhere as much as they expose opportunities." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Documentation is like term insurance: It satisfies because almost no one who subscribes to it depends on its benefits." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Don’t have good ideas if you aren’t willing to be responsible for them." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Epigrams retrieve deep semantics from a data base that is all procedure." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written, and another for which it wasn’t." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Functions delay binding; data structures induce binding. Moral: Structure data late in the programming process. " (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"If a program manipulates a large amount of data, it does so in a small number of ways." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"If we believe in data structures, we must believe in independent (hence simultaneous) processing. For why else would we collect items within a structure? Why do we tolerate languages that give us the one without the other?" (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"In programming, everything we do is a special case of something more general — and often we know it too quickly." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Interfaces keep things tidy, but don’t accelerate growth: Functions do." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than 10 functions on 10 data structures." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. " (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"It is not a language’s weakness but its strengths that control the gradient of its change: Alas, a language never escapes its embryonic sac." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Make no mistake about it: Computers process numbers — not symbols. We measure our understanding (and control) by the extent to which we can arithmetize an activity." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Making something variable is easy. Controlling duration of constancy is the trick." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Most people find the concept of programming obvious, but the doing impossible." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Often it is the means that justify the ends: Goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"One can only display complex information in the mind. Like seeing, movement or flow or alteration of view is more important than the static picture, no matter how lovely." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Prolonged contact with the computer turns mathematicians into clerks and vice versa." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Recursion is the root of computation since it trades description for time." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Software is under a constant tension. Being symbolic it is arbitrarily perfectible; but also it is arbitrarily changeable." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Symmetry is a complexity-reducing concept (co-routines include subroutines); seek it everywhere." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Systems have sub-systems and sub-systems have sub-systems and so on ad infinitum - which is why we’re always starting over." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"The cybernetic exchange between man, computer and algorithm is like a game of musical chairs: The frantic search for balance always leaves one of the three standing ill at ease." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"The goal of computation is the emulation of our synthetic abilities, not the understanding of our analytic ones." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"The string is a stark data structure and everywhere it is passed there is much duplication of process. It is a perfect vehicle for hiding information." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"The use of a program to prove the 4-color theorem will not change mathematics - it merely demonstrates that the theorem, a challenge for a century, is probably not important to mathematics." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"To understand a program you must become both the machine and the program." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"We kid ourselves if we think that the ratio of procedure to data in an active data-base system can be made arbitrarily small or even kept small." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"We will never run out of things to program as long as there is a single program around." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)

"Wherever there is modularity there is the potential for misunderstanding: Hiding information implies a need to check communication." (Alan J Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)