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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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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

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Beauty is our business.
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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.
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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 prisoner falls in love with his chains.
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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.
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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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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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APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.
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Too few people recognize that the high technology so celebrated today is essentially a mathematical technology.
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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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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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Experience does by no means automatically leads to wisdom and understanding.
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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.
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Testing shows the presence, not the absence of bugs.
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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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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.
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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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It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.
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I don't need to waste my time with a computer just because I am a computer scientist.
Edsger Dijkstra