Alan Perlis Ram Quotations

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

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.

Optimization hinders evolution.

Any noun can be verbed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In English every word can be verbed.

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

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

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