Alan Perlis

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?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.

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

The computing field is always in need of new cliches.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

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

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.