Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra

Image
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.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
I don't need to waste my time with a computer just because I am a computer scientist.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
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.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really know what we are doing.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
PL/1, the fatal disease, belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Mentally mutilated potential programmers beyond hope of regeneration.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
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
Image
Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Probably I am very naive, but I also think I prefer to remain so, at least for the time being and perhaps for the rest of my life.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
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
Image
Beauty is our business.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
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.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
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
Image
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.
Edsger Dijkstra