Introductory

“I think that it’s extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don’t think we are. I think we’re responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don’t become missionaries. Don’t feel as if you’re Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don’t feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What’s in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence:the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more. ” —Alan J. Perlis^[1] (April 1, 1922 – February 7, 1990)

艾伦・杰・佩利（1922 年 4 月 1 日 - 1990 年 2 月 7 日）, 美国计算机科学家，以其对计算机科学的早期贡献而闻名。他是首届图灵奖的获得者。佩利在他的职业生涯中做出了许多重要贡献，他特别以推广编程语言及其编译技术而著称。他在 ALGOL 编程语言的发展中发挥了重要作用，ALGOL 是一种早期的、高级编程语言，影响了许多后来的编程语言，包括 Pascal 和 C 语言。他在耶鲁大学计算机科学系担任教授，并且是该系的创始主任。佩利还以其睿智的格言而闻名，可以看这篇流传甚广的在 1982 年佩利在 ACM 的 SIGPLAN 期刊上发表的 Epigrams in Programming（编程警句），中文版在这。 ↩︎