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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

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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
Computer
Mild
Millions
Gigantic
Either
Confronted
Powerful
Computers
Times
Faced
Problem
Programming
Machines
Million

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Mentally mutilated potential programmers beyond hope of regeneration.
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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.
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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.
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We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people sometimes they follow it!
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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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There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
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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.
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Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
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I don't need to waste my time with a computer just because I am a computer scientist.
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Testing shows the presence, not the absence of bugs.
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We shall do a much better programming job, provided that we approach the task with a full appreciation of its tremendous difficulty, provided that we stick to modest and elegant programming languages, provided that we respect the intrinsic limitations of the human mind and approach the task as Very Humble Programmers.
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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.
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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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The use of anthropomorphic terminology forces you linguistically to adopt an operational view. And it makes it practically impossible to argue about programs independently of their being executed.
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The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
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Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.
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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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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?
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APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.
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