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It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.

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
Offers
Asks
Society
Give
Programming
Giving
Task
Needs
Offer
Tasks
University

More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra

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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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Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.
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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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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.
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Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well.
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The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.
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Too few people recognize that the high technology so celebrated today is essentially a mathematical technology.
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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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Teaching to unsuspecting youngsters the effective use of formal methods is one of the joys of life because it is so extremely rewarding.
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The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings.
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Beauty is our business.
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The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity.
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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.
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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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Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
Edsger Dijkstra
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... as a slow-witted human being I have a very small head and I had better learn to live with it and to respect my limitations and give them full credit, rather than to try to ignore them, for the latter vain effort will be punished by failure.
Edsger Dijkstra
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LISP has jokingly been described as the most intelligent way to misuse a computer. I think that description is a great compliment because it transmits the full flavour of liberation: it has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts.
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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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
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Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.
Edsger Dijkstra