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The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity.

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
Organizing
Programming
Complexity
Art

More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra

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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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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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We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people sometimes they follow it!
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The effort of using machines to mimic the human mind has always struck me as rather silly. I would rather use them to mimic something better.
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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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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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The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
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Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really know what we are doing.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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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The use of COBOL cripples the mind its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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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Beauty is our business.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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
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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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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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It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well.
Edsger Dijkstra