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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
Refuse
Solutions
Problems
Left
Problem
Real
Primarily
World
Apply
Effective

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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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APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.
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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.
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Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.
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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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Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.
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John von Neumann draws attention to what seemed to him a contrast. He remarked that for simple mechanisms, it is often easier to describe how they work than what they do, while for more complicated mechanisms, it is usually the other way around.
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The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.
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The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings.
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The use of COBOL cripples the mind its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
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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.
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Teaching COBOL ought to be regarded as a criminal act.
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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.
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Production speed is severely slowed down if one works with half-time people who have other obligations as well. This is at least a factor of four probably it is worse.
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If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.
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Teaching to unsuspecting youngsters the effective use of formal methods is one of the joys of life because it is so extremely rewarding.
Edsger Dijkstra
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... 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.
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Experience does by no means automatically leads to wisdom and understanding.
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Too few people recognize that the high technology so celebrated today is essentially a mathematical technology.
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