Alan Perlis Quotes

Certainly not every good program is object-oriented, and not every object-oriented program is good.

Defining OO as based on the use of class hierarchies and virtual functions is also practical in that it provides some guidance as to where OO is likely to be successful.

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.

Adding functionality is not just a matter of adding code.

There are two methods in software design. One is to make the program so simple, there are obviously no errors. The other is to make it so complicated, there are no obvious errors.

If 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself: 'Dijkstra would not have liked this', well that would be enough immortality for me.

First you learn the value of abstraction, then you learn the cost of abstraction, then you're ready to engineer.

Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.

Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.

I made up the term "object-oriented," and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.

Another trick in software is to avoid rewriting the software by using a piece that's already been written, so called component approach which the latest term for this in the most advanced form is what's called Object Oriented Programming.

I used to be enamored of object-oriented programming. I'm now finding myself leaning toward believing that it is a plot designed to destroy joy.

Good visual layout shows the logical structure of a program.

Even if you aren't in doubt, consider the mental welfare of the person who has to maintain the code after you, and who will probably put parens in the wrong place.

"Legacy code" often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling.

Especially the transcendental philosophy needs the leaven of humor to render it light and digestible.

I could as easily bail out the Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the details of the army.

Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other way around.

Asking the front wheels of a car to do their normal job of steering while handling more than 170 is like asking a man to wire a plug while juggling. Penguins. While making love. To a beautiful woman while on fire, on stage. In front of the Queen. It's all going to go wrong.

Quand celui à qui l'on parle ne comprend pas et celui qui parle ne se comprend pas, c'est de la métaphysique When he to whom a person speaks does not understand, and he who speaks does not understand himself, that is metaphysics.

To date, the enterprise of thinking has moved us radically away from understanding anything.

What doubts, what hypotheses, what labyrinths of amusement, what fields of disputation, what an ocean of false learning, may be avoided by that single notion of immaterialism!

An API that isn't comprehensible isn't usable.

Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.