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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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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
Careful
Follow
Advice
Give
Sometimes
Must
Giving
Programming
People
Younger

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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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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.
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The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity.
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Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well.
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If in physics there's something you don't understand, you can always hide behind the uncharted depths of nature. You can always blame God. You didn't make it so complex yourself. But if your program doesn't work, there is no one to hide behind. You cannot hide behind an obstinate nature. If it doesn't work, you've messed up.
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There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
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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.
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The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
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Beauty is our business.
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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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Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
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Teaching COBOL ought to be regarded as a criminal act.
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The use of anthropomorphic terminology forces you linguistically to adopt an operational view. And it makes it practically impossible to argue about programs independently of their being executed.
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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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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.
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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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APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.
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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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Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.
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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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