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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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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
Days
Mentioned
Spirit
Fashionable
Competitive
Excellence
Concept
Concepts
Explicitly
Notion
Heading
Perfection
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More quotes by 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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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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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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Probably I am very naive, but I also think I prefer to remain so, at least for the time being and perhaps for the rest of my life.
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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It used to be the program's purpose to instruct our computers it became the computer's purpose to execute our programs.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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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Experience does by no means automatically leads to wisdom and understanding.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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The effective exploitation of his powers of abstraction must be regarded as one of the most vital activities of a competent programmer.
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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Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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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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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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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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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The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.
Edsger Dijkstra