If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams
In 1982, Alan Perlis distilled what he had learned from a lifetime of programming into 130 pithy quotes. TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO. And most of them are still relevant.
Some of the best:
Some of the best:
- Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colon.
- It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.
- If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
- If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
- Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be taught how not to. So it is with the great programmers.
- There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.
- In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
- Making something variable is easy. Controlling duration of constancy is the trick.
- If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams.
posted by Pete Bevin at
1:43 PM
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