Alan Perlis

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

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

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

“We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.”

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

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

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

“Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.”

“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?”

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

“Every program has two purposes: The one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.”

“Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.”

“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.”

“If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.”

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

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

“One man's constant is another man's variable.”

“The computing field is always in need of new cliches.”

“In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.”

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