Quote

If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.

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
Computer
Removing
Funny
Removal
Process
Programmers
Must
Bugs
Programming
Software
Code
Debugging
Putting
Developers

More quotes by 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
Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself Dijkstra would not have liked this, well, that would be enough immortality for me.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
I think of the company advertising Thought Processors or the college pretending that learning BASIC suffices or at least helps, whereas the teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery.
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
There is very little point in trying to urge the world to mend its ways as long as that world is still convinced that its ways are perfectly adequate.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people sometimes they follow it!
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
It is a mistake to think that programmers wares are programs. Programmers have to produce trustworthy solutions and present it in the form of cogent arguments. Programs source code is just the accompanying material to which these arguments are to be applied to.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
PL/1, the fatal disease, belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Teaching COBOL ought to be regarded as a criminal act.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
We shall do a much better programming job, provided that we approach the task with a full appreciation of its tremendous difficulty, provided that we stick to modest and elegant programming languages, provided that we respect the intrinsic limitations of the human mind and approach the task as Very Humble Programmers.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.
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
The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
If in physics there's something you don't understand, you can always hide behind the uncharted depths of nature. You can always blame God. You didn't make it so complex yourself. But if your program doesn't work, there is no one to hide behind. You cannot hide behind an obstinate nature. If it doesn't work, you've messed up.
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
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.
Edsger Dijkstra