Quote

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

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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
Hard
Matters
Great
Worse
Work
Appreciate
Elegance
Make
Achieve
Programming
Virtue
Complexity
Education
Sells
Better
Simplicity
Matter
Requires

More quotes by 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.
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Experience does by no means automatically leads to wisdom and understanding.
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Industry suffers from the managerial dogma that for the sake of stability and continuity, the company should be independent of the competence of individual employees.
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Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well.
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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
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APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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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We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people sometimes they follow it!
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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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
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Teaching COBOL ought to be regarded as a criminal act.
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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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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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
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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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The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.
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
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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