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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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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
World
Apply
Effective
Refuse
Solutions
Problems
Left
Problem
Real
Primarily

More quotes by 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.
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Beauty is our business.
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We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people sometimes they follow it!
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The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings.
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Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
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Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.
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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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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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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 COBOL ought to be regarded as a criminal act.
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PL/1, the fatal disease, belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
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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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Experience does by no means automatically leads to wisdom and understanding.
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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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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?
Edsger Dijkstra
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Mentally mutilated potential programmers beyond hope of regeneration.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.
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It used to be the program's purpose to instruct our computers it became the computer's purpose to execute our programs.
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