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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.
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
Program
Executed
View
Independently
Views
Adopt
Impossible
Practically
Force
Programs
Linguistically
Use
Argue
Anthropomorphic
Makes
Arguing
Operational
Forces
Terminology
More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra
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
Mentally mutilated potential programmers beyond hope of regeneration.
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
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
I don't need to waste my time with a computer just because I am a computer scientist.
Edsger Dijkstra
The effective exploitation of his powers of abstraction must be regarded as one of the most vital activities of a competent programmer.
Edsger Dijkstra
The use of COBOL cripples the mind its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
Edsger Dijkstra
Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well.
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
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
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
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
Teaching COBOL ought to be regarded as a criminal act.
Edsger Dijkstra
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
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.
Edsger Dijkstra
If there is one 'scientific' discovery I am proud of, it is the discovery of the habit of writing without publication in mind.
Edsger Dijkstra
Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.
Edsger Dijkstra
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.
Edsger Dijkstra
Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.
Edsger Dijkstra
Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
Edsger Dijkstra
