Ceva timp în urmă căutam detalii despre  o metodă de optimizare ce implica teoria calculului evolutiv. După parcurgerea mai multor linkuri găsesc fraza  

Optimization hinders evolution.

După analiza sursei m-am dat seama că nu este ceea ce căutam, dar linkul l-am păstrat. Pagina prezinta o listă de perlisme: epigrame inspirate din ştiinţa calculatoarelor publicate de către Alan J. Perlis (Yale University). Unele le mai vazusem, altele nu. Oricum multe din ele m-au surpins prin simplitatea expunerii lor:

1. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
2. Programming is an unnatural act.
3. A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

4. A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing.
5. It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
6. Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
7. It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.
8. A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
9. The proof of a system’s value is its existence.
10. Whenever two programmers meet to criticize their programs, both are silent.

Am selectat subiectiv şi rapid doar 10, restul epigramelor le puteţi citi pe pagina universităţii Yale: http://www.cs.yale.edu/quotes.html.