List of Alan Perlis Quotes

Any Noun Can Be Verbed.

In English Every Word Can Be Verbed. Would That It Were So In Our Programming Languages.

Fortran Is Not A Flower But A Weed - It Is Hardy, Occasionally Blooms, And Grows In Every Computer.

Because Of Its Vitality, The Computing Field Is Always In Desperate Need Of New Cliches: Banality Soothes Our Nerves.

One Can't Proceed From The Informal To The Formal By Formal Means.

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?

We Are On The Verge: Today Our Program Proved Fermat's Next-to-last Theorem.

If You Have A Procedure With 10 Parameters, You Probably Missed Some.

Often It Is The Means That Justify The Ends: Goals Advance Technique And Technique Survives Even When Goal Structures Crumble.

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.

One Can Only Display Complex Information In The Mind. Like Seeing, Movement Or Flow Or Alteration Of View Is More Important Than The Static Picture, No Matter How Lovely.

You Can Measure A Programmer's Perspective By Noting His Attitude On The Continuing Vitality Of Fortran.