
Alan Perlis: Epigrams on Programming (1982) [pdf] - tosh
https://www.gwern.net/docs/cs/1982-perlis.pdf
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braythwayt
Alan Perlis's own page listing the epigrams, in HTML for ease of readability,
copying, and accessibility:

[http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-
alan/quotes.html](http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html)

Herbert Klaeren's list, which includes some meta-epigrams:

[http://pu.inf.uni-
tuebingen.de/users/klaeren/epigrams.html](http://pu.inf.uni-
tuebingen.de/users/klaeren/epigrams.html)

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tosh
Interesting that the Yale website omits the last 10

~~~
gwern
It also has some subtle transcription errors, which is why I got a copy of the
original to host & link instead. For example, I forget which, unfortunately,
but one of the later ones makes zero sense in the HTML version, because it's
based on some wordplay and the transcriber got a word wrong. (I always thought
I was simply not getting it, until I got the original and rereading, realized
that the problem wasn't me.)

~~~
tosh
#116 on the Yale Website:

> You think you know when you _can_ learn, are more sure when you can write,
> even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.

in the scanned original:

> You think you know when you learn, are more sure when you can write, even
> more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.

~~~
gwern
That might be it, yes.

------
tosh
> Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new
> machines to behave like old ones.

Made me think about backwards compatibility. Backwards compatibility often is
what allows a new platform to be successful (or to have a shot at success) and
yet it can hold it back from what it would have become without it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence)

Related a recent comment by munificent on all the effort that goes into
JavaScript runtimes:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20413090](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20413090)

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dang
A dozen threads but no real big ones:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=epigrams%20programming%20comme...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=epigrams%20programming%20comments%3E0&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

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vok
A favorite Alan Perlis quote that's not included here: "If Shakespeare were
alive today, he’d be a programmer, and he’d be writing one-liners in APL."

[https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLQA.htm](https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLQA.htm)

