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Mentally mutilated potential programmers beyond hope of regeneration.

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
Mutilated
Regeneration
Programmers
Mentally
Potential
Beyond
Hope

More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra

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The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
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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.
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PL/1, the fatal disease, belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
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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
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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
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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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Beauty is our business.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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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It is a mistake to think that programmers wares are programs. Programmers have to produce trustworthy solutions and present it in the form of cogent arguments. Programs source code is just the accompanying material to which these arguments are to be applied to.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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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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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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
Edsger Dijkstra
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Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes, biology is about microscopes or chemistry is about beakers and test tubes. Science is not about tools. It is about how we use them, and what we find out when we do.
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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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