"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."

Alan Perlis Science See all quotes by Alan Perlis →

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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