Quote

Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.

Edsger Dijkstra

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edsger Dijkstra
Age: 72 †
Born: 1930
Born: May 11
Died: 2002
Died: August 5
Computer Scientist
Engineer
Mathematician
Physicist
Scientist
University Teacher
R'dam
Edsger Dijkstra
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra
Dijkstra
EWD
E.W. Dijkstra
Factors
Luxury
Failure
Success
Dispensable
Decides
Congratulations
Elegance
Factor

More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra

Image
Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
The use of COBOL cripples the mind its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
It used to be the program's purpose to instruct our computers it became the computer's purpose to execute our programs.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
The effort of using machines to mimic the human mind has always struck me as rather silly. I would rather use them to mimic something better.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
John von Neumann draws attention to what seemed to him a contrast. He remarked that for simple mechanisms, it is often easier to describe how they work than what they do, while for more complicated mechanisms, it is usually the other way around.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Probably I am very naive, but I also think I prefer to remain so, at least for the time being and perhaps for the rest of my life.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
A most important, but also most elusive, aspect of any tool is its influence on the habits of those who train themselves in its use. If the tool is a programming language this influence is, whether we like it or not, an influence on our thinking habits.... A programming language is a tool that has profound influence on our thinking habits.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
The effective exploitation of his powers of abstraction must be regarded as one of the most vital activities of a competent programmer.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
LISP has jokingly been described as the most intelligent way to misuse a computer. I think that description is a great compliment because it transmits the full flavour of liberation: it has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Testing shows the presence, not the absence of bugs.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
FORTRAN, the infantile disorder, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Too few people recognize that the high technology so celebrated today is essentially a mathematical technology.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Experience does by no means automatically leads to wisdom and understanding.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.
Edsger Dijkstra