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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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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
Progress
Learning
Possible
Programs
Without
Programming
Think
Code
Thinking
Train
Program
Pieces

More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra

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If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.
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Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.
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I don't need to waste my time with a computer just because I am a computer scientist.
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The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
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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.
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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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Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.
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Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.
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Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!
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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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There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
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Production speed is severely slowed down if one works with half-time people who have other obligations as well. This is at least a factor of four probably it is worse.
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Experience does by no means automatically leads to wisdom and understanding.
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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.
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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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.
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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
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I mentioned the non-competitive spirit explicitly, because these days, excellence is a fashionable concept. But excellence is a competitive notion, and that is not what we are heading for: we are heading for perfection.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.
Edsger Dijkstra
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The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
Edsger Dijkstra