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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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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
Publication
Scientific
Discovery
Habit
Proud
Without
Writing
Mind

More quotes by 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.
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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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Mentally mutilated potential programmers beyond hope of regeneration.
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It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
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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.
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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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The use of COBOL cripples the mind its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
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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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Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
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The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity.
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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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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.
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The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
Edsger Dijkstra
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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
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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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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.
Edsger Dijkstra
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The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings.
Edsger Dijkstra