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Perlisisms

https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html
40•tosh•2h ago

Comments

dtagames•2h ago
And in #27 we find the rationale behind all LLM coding agents, "Once you understand how a program works, get someone else to write it for you."
hugo0vaz•1h ago
I think you misunderstood what the phrase actually means. You can only successfully manage or outsource a process once you understand it well enough to explain it. Therefore, most of the people doing agentic engineering are not following this Perlisim.
summa_tech•1h ago
Once you understand how a program works, get someone else to write it for you. Then, you will quickly find out your understanding was insufficient.
fhars•16m ago
The actual prescient LLM quote is "7. It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one."
sriram_malhar•1h ago
This feels so quaint today. How I'd like to be back in that timeframe.
chriscbr•1h ago
Random self plug - I liked a lot of these quotes from Alan Perlis, so around a year ago I bought the domain https://perl.is/ to display them.
summa_tech•1h ago
Neat! What do you think about adding a "-2, -1, 0, +1, +2" agreement scale to each quote and showing the average instead of votes?

I think many of those are pretty subjective, and maybe not always right for everyone or for all time. But there are certainly going to be some universal pearls of wisdom, and neither of us can - by ourselves - tell which ones they are.

DonHopkins•27m ago
>1. One man's constant is another man's variable.

Did you ever have one of those days when variables didn't and constants weren't?

jancsika•26m ago
> 2. Functions delay binding; data structures induce binding. Moral: Structure data late in the programming process.

A good way to enforce this is to encrypt the data at the beginning of the process.

Then any function that returns structured data is clearly foolish and can be marked for removal.

LelouBil•17m ago
> A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.

Great definition actually

LelouBil•15m ago
> Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.

Pretty relevant with LLMs and coding agents.

Rio de Janeiro's "homegrown" LLM appears to be a merge of an existing model

https://github.com/nex-agi/Nex-N2/issues/4
74•unrvl22•1h ago•39 comments

Firewood Splitting Simulator

https://screen.toys/firewood/
327•memalign•4d ago•109 comments

The Birth and Death of JavaScript (2014)

https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript
153•subset•4h ago•83 comments

Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-politics/swiss-voters-reject-proposal-to-cap-population-at-ten...
68•FabCH•1h ago•17 comments

Perlisisms

https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html
41•tosh•2h ago•11 comments

Caddy compatibility for zeroserve: 3x throughput and 70% lower latency

https://su3.io/posts/zeroserve-caddy-compat
74•losfair•3h ago•21 comments

Lisp's Influence on Ruby

https://blog.tacoda.dev/lisps-influence-on-ruby-6a54f1a7740e
150•tacoda•3d ago•19 comments

Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)

22•david927•1h ago•31 comments

No, everyone is not using AI for everything

https://gabrielweinberg.com/p/people-are-consuming-ai-like-they
235•yegg•2h ago•233 comments

FarOutCompany

https://faroutcompany.com/
60•bookofjoe•3h ago•5 comments

I indexed 669 GB of my GoPro videos using my M1 Max computer and local ML models

82•iliashad•2h ago•10 comments

Global density and biomass of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu4373
24•zdw•1d ago•1 comments

The only scalable delete in Postgres is DROP TABLE

https://planetscale.com/blog/the-only-scalable-delete
63•hollylawly•3d ago•29 comments

Rio de Janeiro's city government model Rio3.5 beats Qwen3.7 in recent benchmarks

https://twitter.com/zenmagnets/status/2065796012820848699
100•lucasfcosta•2h ago•28 comments

Show HN: Dual YOLOv8n UAV Detection on RK3588S at 42 FPS Using NPU

https://github.com/alebal123bal/khadas_yolov8n_multithread
25•alebal123bal•2h ago•4 comments

Formal Methods and the Future of Programming

https://blog.janestreet.com/formal-methods-at-jane-street-index/?from_theconsensus=1
62•eatonphil•4h ago•19 comments

Quivers: A year of linear algebra by drawing arrows

https://lisyarus.github.io/blog/posts/quivers-a-year-of-linear-algebra-by-drawing-arrows.html
9•ibobev•4d ago•0 comments

How did Atari apply side art to Arcade Cabinets?

https://arcadeblogger.com/2026/06/14/how-did-atari-apply-side-art-to-arcade-cabinets/
46•msephton•4h ago•8 comments

How to Earn a Billion Dollars

https://paulgraham.com/earn.html
242•kingstoned•5h ago•660 comments

Linux 7.1

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wi4BF4bMhZNZ1tqs+FFV4OuZRe3ZqdWB+LxRLmRweUzQw@mail.gmail.com/T/#u
44•berlianta•1h ago•1 comments

Show HN: 3D print Z reinforcement via injected loops

https://mgunlogson.github.io/magma/
16•mgunlogson•5d ago•6 comments

A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/12/climate/cold-blob-atlantic-amoc-ocean-circulation
101•tambourine_man•2h ago•121 comments

Free SQL→ER diagram tool, runs in the browser, nothing uploaded

https://sqltoerdiagram.com/
310•robhati•13h ago•60 comments

Honda Civics and the Evil Valet

https://juniperspring.org/posts/honda-evil-valet/
362•librick•16h ago•86 comments

Extinction-Level Capitalism

https://matthewbutterick.com/extinction-level-capitalism.html
86•laurex•2h ago•32 comments

Dangerous hormone-disrupting chemicals found in US breast milk samples

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/14/breast-milk-research-chemicals
51•andsoitis•2h ago•20 comments

KPMG pulls report on AI usage due to apparent hallucinations

https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/13/kpmg-pulls-report-on-ai-usage-due-to-apparent-hallucinations/
72•Brajeshwar•3h ago•6 comments

FTX's former Anthropic stake would be worth about $75B at today's valuation

6•adam_rida•57m ago•5 comments

Don't trust large context windows

https://garrit.xyz/posts/2026-05-06-dont-trust-large-context-windows
221•computersuck•11h ago•162 comments

Historic co-determination helps monasteries navigate digital change

https://phys.org/news/2026-05-historic-monasteries-digital-countries.html
64•indynz•2d ago•42 comments