A Quote by Alan Perlis

Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress. — © Alan Perlis
Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
My impression was and is that many programming languages and tools represent solutions looking for problems, and I was determined that my work should not fall into that category. Thus, I follow the literature on programming languages and the debates about programming languages primarily looking for ideas for solutions to problems my colleagues and I have encountered in real applications. Other programming languages constitute a mountain of ideas and inspiration-but it has to be mined carefully to avoid featurism and inconsistencies.
Although mathematical notation undoubtedly possesses parsing rules, they are rather loose, sometimes contradictory, and seldom clearly stated. [...] The proliferation of programming languages shows no more uniformity than mathematics. Nevertheless, programming languages do bring a different perspective. [...] Because of their application to a broad range of topics, their strict grammar, and their strict interpretation, programming languages can provide new insights into mathematical notation.
My favorite programming languages are Lisp and C. However, since around 1992 I have worked mainly on free software activism, which means I am too busy to do much programming. Around 2008 I stopped doing programming projects.
Overemphasis of efficiency leads to an unfortunate circularity in design: for reasons of efficiency early programming languages reflected the characteristics of the early computers, and each generation of computers reflects the needs of the programming languages of the preceding generation.
Computer scientists have so far worked on developing powerful programming languages that make it possible to solve the technical problems of computation. Little effort has gone toward devising the languages of interaction.
Though I do manage to mumble around in about seven or eight languages, English remains the most beautiful of languages. It will do anything.
For his major contributions to the analysis of algorithms and the design of programming languages, and in particular for his contributions to the "art of computer programming" through his well-known books in a continuous series by this title.
Now, it's my belief that Python is a lot easier than to teach to students programming and teach them C or C++ or Java at the same time because all the details of the languages are so much harder. Other scripting languages really don't work very well there either.
We shall do a much better programming job, provided that we approach the task with a full appreciation of its tremendous difficulty, provided that we stick to modest and elegant programming languages, provided that we respect the intrinsic limitations of the human mind and approach the task as Very Humble Programmers.
With 'Scratch,' you create computer programs by snapping together graphical programming blocks, much like LEGO bricks, without any of the obscure syntax and punctuation of traditional programming languages. After creating an interactive 'Scratch' project, you can share it on the 'Scratch' website, just as you would share videos on YouTube.
My particular interest for the past couple of years has been to really think deeply about the big impendence mismatch we have between programming languages, C# in particular, and the database world, like SQL or, for that matter, the XML world, like XQuery and those languages that exist.
Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.
Once computers can program, they basically take over technological progress because already, today, the majority of technological progress is run by software, by programming.
I find languages that support just one programming paradigm constraining.
I find languages that support just one programming paradigm constraining
The major change was going from 'Black and White' to 'Fable,' because I was no longer programming, and I had spent most of my time designing through programming, and only working with people I knew well.
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