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The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.
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
Complexity
Confused
Main
Scientist
Challenge
Complexities
Challenges
Computing
Making
Programmers
Programming
More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra
It used to be the program's purpose to instruct our computers it became the computer's purpose to execute our programs.
Edsger Dijkstra
The use of COBOL cripples the mind its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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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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APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.
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Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.
Edsger Dijkstra
Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
Edsger Dijkstra
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
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.
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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
Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.
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Too few people recognize that the high technology so celebrated today is essentially a mathematical technology.
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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
A convincing demonstration of correctness being impossible as long as the mechanism is regarded as a black box, our only hope lies in not regarding the mechanism as a black box.
Edsger Dijkstra
Teaching COBOL ought to be regarded as a criminal act.
Edsger Dijkstra
Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.
Edsger Dijkstra
When we had no computers, we had no programming problem either. When we had a few computers, we had a mild programming problem. Confronted with machines a million times as powerful, we are faced with a gigantic programming problem.
Edsger Dijkstra
Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really know what we are doing.
Edsger Dijkstra
... 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
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
