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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
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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
Computer
Ripple
Capacity
Precedent
Intellectual
Computers
Mankind
Tool
Challenges
Cultural
History
Surface
Culture
Challenge
Without
Tools
More quotes by 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 to unsuspecting youngsters the effective use of formal methods is one of the joys of life because it is so extremely rewarding.
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
The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
Edsger Dijkstra
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
There is very little point in trying to urge the world to mend its ways as long as that world is still convinced that its ways are perfectly adequate.
Edsger Dijkstra
It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.
Edsger Dijkstra
Beauty is our business.
Edsger Dijkstra
The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.
Edsger Dijkstra
We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people sometimes they follow it!
Edsger Dijkstra
PL/1, the fatal disease, belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
Edsger Dijkstra
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
Edsger Dijkstra
Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
Edsger Dijkstra
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.
Edsger Dijkstra
Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well.
Edsger Dijkstra
Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.
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
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
Too few people recognize that the high technology so celebrated today is essentially a mathematical technology.
Edsger Dijkstra
Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.
Edsger Dijkstra
