Alan Perlis

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

A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing.

Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

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

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.

Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Educators, generals, dieticians, psychologists, and parents program. Armies, students, and some societies are programmed.

For all its power, the computer is a harsh taskmaster. Its programs must be correct, and what we wish to say must be said accurately in every detail.

Within a computer, natural language is unnatural.

It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.