Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. — Alan Perlis
Alan J. Perlis. 1982. Special Feature: Epigrams on programming. SIGPLAN Not. 17, 9 (September 1982), 7–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/947955.1083808
Also transcribed at https://cpsc.yale.edu/epigrams-programming
A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing. — Alan Perlis
Alan J. Perlis. 1982. Special Feature: Epigrams on programming. SIGPLAN Not. 17, 9 (September 1982), 7–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/947955.1083808
Also transcribed at https://cpsc.yale.edu/epigrams-programming
Each breakthrough in hardware technology leads to more massive programming enterprises, new organizational principles, and an enrichment of abstract models. Every reader should ask himself periodically “Toward what end, toward what end?”—but do not ask it too often lest you pass up the fun of programming for the constipation of bittersweet philosophy.
The source of the exhilaration associated with computer programming is the continual unfolding within the mind and on the computer of mechanisms expressed as programs and the explosion of perception they generate. If art interprets our dreams, the computer executes them in the guise of programs!