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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.

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
Effective
Method
Unsuspecting
Teaching
Youngsters
Joy
Rewarding
Use
Joys
Life
Methods
Formal
Extremely

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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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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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Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!
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Too few people recognize that the high technology so celebrated today is essentially a mathematical technology.
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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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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.
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The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
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PL/1, the fatal disease, belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
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Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.
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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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Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.
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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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If there is one 'scientific' discovery I am proud of, it is the discovery of the habit of writing without publication in mind.
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There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
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.
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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.
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Mentally mutilated potential programmers beyond hope of regeneration.
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Testing shows the presence, not the absence of bugs.
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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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Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.
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