Alan Perlis

“There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.”

“Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.”

“It goes against the grain of modern education to teach students to program. What fun is there to making plans, acquiring discipline, organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self critical.”

“You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.”

“In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word 'frustration'.”

“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.”

“Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.”