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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

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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
Long
Regarded
Mechanism
Boxes
Lies
Impossible
Correctness
Lying
Regarding
Hope
Demonstration
Black
Convincing

More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra

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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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I don't need to waste my time with a computer just because I am a computer scientist.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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The use of COBOL cripples the mind its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Too few people recognize that the high technology so celebrated today is essentially a mathematical technology.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Testing shows the presence, not the absence of bugs.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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
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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
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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
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Mentally mutilated potential programmers beyond hope of regeneration.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Experience does by no means automatically leads to wisdom and understanding.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra