Fermat Quotes by Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot…

— Alan Perlis

Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

— Alan Perlis

Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

— Alan Perlis

The computing field is always in need of new cliches.

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.

— Alan Perlis

When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis