Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.
Alan PerlisRead
A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A well-designed programming language enhances a programmer's ability to think critically about coding tasks.
Alan Perlis highlights the importance of programming languages not just as tools for creating code, but as frameworks that shape a programmer's thinking process. A good programming language provides structure and conceptual clarity, making the complexity of programming more manageable and allowing for innovative solutions to emerge.
Themes
ProgrammingLanguageThinkingConceptualCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a tech conference discussing the future of software development.
More from Alan Perlis
All quotes βBecause of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
Alan PerlisRead
In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word "frustration".
Alan PerlisRead
It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
Alan PerlisRead
Every reader should ask himself periodically βToward what end, toward what end?ββbut do not ask it too often lest you pass up the fun of programming for the constipation of bittersweet philosophy.
Alan PerlisRead
C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
Alan PerlisRead
Similar quotes
Digital presentation is just television in public; we're all just getting together and watching TV without pointing the remote control at the screen.
Quentin TarantinoRead
Ugly programs are like ugly suspension bridges: they're much more liable to collapse than pretty ones, because the way humans (especially engineer-humans) perceive beauty is intimately related to our ability to process and understand complexity. A language that makes it hard to write elegant code makes it hard to write good code.
Eric S. RaymondRead
We are now at a point in time when the ability to receive, utilize, store, transform and transmit data - the lowest cognitive form - has expanded literally beyond comprehension. Understanding and wisdom are largely forgotten as we struggle under an avalanche of data and information.
Dee HockRead
Each new tool we create ends an old relationship with the world and starts a new one. And we're changed by that relationship, inevitably. It changes the way we live, changes our patterns, changes our social organization.
Ellen UllmanRead
Any new technology, if it's used by evil people, bad things can happen. But that's more a question of the politics of the technology.
Geoffrey HintonRead
A newspaper is complete. It is finished, sure of itself, certain. By contrast, digital news is constantly updated, improved upon, changed, moved, developed - an ongoing conversation and collaboration. It is living, evolving, limitless, relentless.
Katharine VinerRead