Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.
Alan PerlisRead
Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights different attitudes towards complexity in problem-solving.
Alan Perlis suggests that people react to complexity in various ways: fools tend to overlook it, pragmatists endure it, some individuals manage to sidestep it, while geniuses have the ability to simplify and eliminate it. This reflects a deeper understanding of intelligence and problem-solving, indicating that true brilliance lies in the ability to make the complicated seem simple.
Themes
ComplexityProblem-SolvingIntelligenceSimplicityWisdom
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a seminar about effective problem-solving strategies.
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
A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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
Similar quotes
That is what the intuition is for: it is the direct messenger of the soul.
Clarissa Pinkola EstesRead
I tend to approach things from a physics framework. And physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy.
Elon MuskRead
A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who doesn't play has lost forever the child who lived in him and who he will miss terribly.
Pablo NerudaRead
You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think.
Mortimer AdlerRead
You're neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You're right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right - that's the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don't have to worry about anybody else.
Warren BuffettRead
I think forgiveness is probably one of the greatest forms of self-love there is because you don't do forgiveness for anybody else. My captors will never care if I forgive them... It will not make a day of difference to them at all, but it will make a huge difference to me.
Elizabeth SmartRead