Programming Quotes by Alan Perlis

In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.

— Alan Perlis

A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.

— Alan Perlis

Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

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

— 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…

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

Optimization hinders evolution.

— Alan Perlis

Any noun can be verbed.

— Alan Perlis

To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.

— Alan Perlis

C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.

— Alan Perlis

Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis

FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.

— Alan Perlis

When someone says, "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done," give him a lollipop.

— Alan Perlis

You think you KNOW when you learn, are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain…

— Alan Perlis

Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is…

— Alan Perlis

In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.

— Alan Perlis

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

— Alan Perlis