From the "Dedication" page of the famous book, "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs":

This book is dedicated, in respect and admiration, to the spirit that

lives in the computer.

“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 shaed every now and then, and aer 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, seing 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. e 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 (April 1, 1922 – February 7, 1990)

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