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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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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
Computers
Programs
Program
Became
Computer
Purpose
Used
Instruct
Execute

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It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.
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There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
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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.
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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.
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Mentally mutilated potential programmers beyond hope of regeneration.
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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?
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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.
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I don't need to waste my time with a computer just because I am a computer scientist.
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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.
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PL/1, the fatal disease, belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
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Testing shows the presence, not the absence of bugs.
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Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.
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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.
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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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The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
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Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!
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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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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.
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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.
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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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