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

Edsger Dijkstra

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

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It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.
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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.
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Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really know what we are doing.
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The use of COBOL cripples the mind its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
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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.
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It used to be the program's purpose to instruct our computers it became the computer's purpose to execute our programs.
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Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.
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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.
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There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
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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.
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If there is one 'scientific' discovery I am proud of, it is the discovery of the habit of writing without publication in mind.
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I don't need to waste my time with a computer just because I am a computer scientist.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.
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APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.
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When we had no computers, we had no programming problem either. When we had a few computers, we had a mild programming problem. Confronted with machines a million times as powerful, we are faced with a gigantic programming problem.
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How do we convince people that in programming simplicity and clarity - in short: what mathematicians call elegance - are not a dispensable luxury, but a crucial matter that decides between success and failure?
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We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people sometimes they follow it!
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The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings.
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The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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