Edsger Dijkstra
Edsger Dijkstra
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra; 11 May 1930 – 6 August 2002) was a Dutch computer scientist. A theoretical physicist by training, he worked as a programmer at the Mathematisch Centrumfrom 1952 to 1962. He was a professor of mathematics at the Eindhoven University of Technologyand a research fellow at the Burroughs Corporation. He held the Schlumberger Centennial Chair in Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin from 1984 until 1999, and retired as Professor Emeritus in 1999...
Edsger Dijkstra quotes about
challenges intellectual culture
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.
challenges world source
The lurking suspicion that something could be simplified is the world's richest source of rewarding challenges.
omission challenges would-be
Some consider the puzzles that are created by their omissions as spicy challenges, without which their texts would be boring; others shun clarity lest their work is considered trivial.
challenges mets mess
I would therefore like to posit that computing's central challenge, how not to make a mess of it, has not yet been met.
real challenges world
Beware of "the real world". A speaker's apeal to it is always an invitation not to challenge his tacit assumptions.
confused challenges scientist
The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.
excitement knows
Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really know what we are doing.
computer question submarine whether
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
clever humility skulls
The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.
today bugs sticks
In the good old days physicists repeated each other's experiments, just to be sure. Today they stick to FORTRAN, so that they can share each other's programs, bugs included.
thinking profound tools
The tools we use have a profound and devious influence on our thinking habits, and therefore on our thinking abilities.
students impossible programming
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.
appreciation jobs humble
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.
years mind use
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.