Quote

Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.

Edsger Dijkstra

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Jargon
Brevity
Avoiding
Aim

More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra

Image
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
Image
Beauty is our business.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
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
Image
Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Experience does by no means automatically leads to wisdom and understanding.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
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.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Teaching COBOL ought to be regarded as a criminal act.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
... 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.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
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
Image
Mentally mutilated potential programmers beyond hope of regeneration.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
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
Image
The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings.
Edsger Dijkstra