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APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.

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
Carried
Perfection
Mistake
Language

More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra

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The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Mentally mutilated potential programmers beyond hope of regeneration.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
Edsger Dijkstra
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The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.
Edsger Dijkstra
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PL/1, the fatal disease, belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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
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The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
Edsger Dijkstra
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The use of COBOL cripples the mind its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes, biology is about microscopes or chemistry is about beakers and test tubes. Science is not about tools. It is about how we use them, and what we find out when we do.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Experience does by no means automatically leads to wisdom and understanding.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Teaching to unsuspecting youngsters the effective use of formal methods is one of the joys of life because it is so extremely rewarding.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!
Edsger Dijkstra
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It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
Edsger Dijkstra
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There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
Edsger Dijkstra
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The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
Edsger Dijkstra
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In their capacity as a tool, computers will be but a ripple on the surface of our culture. In their capacity as intellectual challenge, they are without precedent in the cultural history of mankind.
Edsger Dijkstra