Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.
Edsger Dijkstra
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Firstly
Secondly
Compete
Chosen
Competition
Weapons
Experience
More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra
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
Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.
Edsger Dijkstra
Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!
Edsger Dijkstra
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
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?
Edsger Dijkstra
Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.
Edsger Dijkstra
John von Neumann draws attention to what seemed to him a contrast. He remarked that for simple mechanisms, it is often easier to describe how they work than what they do, while for more complicated mechanisms, it is usually the other way around.
Edsger Dijkstra
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
If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.
Edsger Dijkstra
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.
Edsger Dijkstra
Teaching COBOL ought to be regarded as a criminal act.
Edsger Dijkstra
Experience does by no means automatically leads to wisdom and understanding.
Edsger Dijkstra
PL/1, the fatal disease, belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
Edsger Dijkstra
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
It is a mistake to think that programmers wares are programs. Programmers have to produce trustworthy solutions and present it in the form of cogent arguments. Programs source code is just the accompanying material to which these arguments are to be applied to.
Edsger Dijkstra
I don't need to waste my time with a computer just because I am a computer scientist.
Edsger Dijkstra
The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity.
Edsger Dijkstra
Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
Edsger Dijkstra
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.
Edsger Dijkstra
It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.
Edsger Dijkstra