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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

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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
Stability
Sake
Managerial
Independent
Suffers
Motivational
Competence
Industry
Continuity
Company
Employees
Suffering
Dogma
Individual
Employee

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The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
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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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I don't need to waste my time with a computer just because I am a computer scientist.
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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.
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PL/1, the fatal disease, belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
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There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
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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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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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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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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.
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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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Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.
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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.
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Beauty is our business.
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Testing shows the presence, not the absence of bugs.
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Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
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APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.
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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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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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It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.
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