Alan Perlis Quotes

Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.

A powerful programming language is more than just a means for instructing a computer to perform tasks. The language also serves as a framework within which we organize our ideas about processes.

I think everyone should get a little exposure to computer science because it really forces you to think in a slightly different way, and it's a skill that you can apply in life in general, whether you end up in computer science or not.

Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.

A programming language is a tool that has profound influence on our thinking habits.

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

C++ is designed to allow you to express ideas, but if you don't have ideas or don't have any clue about how to express them, C++ doesn't offer much help.

I will, in fact, claim that the difference between a bad programmer and a good one is whether he considers his code or his data structures more important. Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.

The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity.

What is the central core of the subject [computer science]? What is it that distinguishes it from the separate subjects with which it is related? What is the linking thread which gathers these disparate branches into a single discipline. My answer to these questions is simple -it is the art of programming a computer. It is the art of designing efficient and elegant methods of getting a computer to solve problems, theoretical or practical, small or large, simple or complex. It is the art of translating this design into an effective and accurate computer program.

To me programming is more than an important practical art. It is also a gigantic undertaking in the foundations of knowledge.

Learn when and how to use different data structures and their algorithms in your own code. This is harder as a student, as the problem assignments you'll work through just won't impart this knowledge. That's fine.

Mathematics seems to endow one with something like a new sense.

To me, mathematics, computer science, and the arts are insanely related. They're all creative expressions.

Code is not like other how-computers-work books. It doesn't have big color illustrations of disk drives with arrows showing how the data sweeps into the computer. Code has no drawings of trains carrying a cargo of zeros and ones. Metaphors and similes are wonderful literary devices but they do nothing but obscure the beauty of technology.

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

I think everyone should learn how to code.

It's [programming] the only job I can think of where I get to be both an engineer and an artist. There's an incredible, rigorous, technical element to it, which I like because you have to do very precise thinking. On the other hand, it has a wildly creative side where the boundaries of imagination are the only real limitation.

At many levels, Perl is a 'diagonal' language.

APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.

The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best dangerous.

Take Lisp, you know its the most beautiful language in the world -- at least up until Haskell came along.

I think that computer programming shows in my writing. Often when I write about computer programmers I'll write about the way that they see the world and they structure the world.

Computer science needs to be part of the core curriculum - like algebra, biology, physics, or chemistry. We need all schools to teach it, not just 10%.

The hardest part of the software task is arriving at a complete and consistent specification, and much of the essence of building a program is in fact the debugging of the specification.