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
technology thinking swim
The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim.
brain damage causes
Programming in Basic causes brain damage.
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.
perfection excellence spirit
I mentioned the non-competitive spirit explicitly, because these days, excellence is a fashionable concept. But excellence is a competitive notion, and that is not what we are heading for: we are heading for perfection.
challenges world source
The lurking suspicion that something could be simplified is the world's richest source of rewarding challenges.
mean understanding doe
Experience does by no means automatically leads to wisdom and understanding.
powerful code-quality bells
Are you quite sure that all those bells and whistles, all those wonderful facilities of your so called powerful programming languages, belong to the solution set rather than the problem set?
long trying adequate
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.
thinking naive
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.
powerful machines computer
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.
trying helping should
In the software business there are many enterprises for which it is not clear that science can help them; that science should try is not clear either.
technology hands two
When I came back from Munich, it was September, and I was Professor of Mathematics at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Later I learned that I had been the Department's third choice, after two numerical analysts had turned the invitation down; the decision to invite me had not been an easy one, on the one hand because I had not really studied mathematics, and on the other hand because of my sandals, my beard and my "arrogance" (whatever that may be).
teamwork people may
In the wake of the Cultural Revolution and now of the recession I observe a mounting pressure to co-operate and to promote "teamwork". For its anti-individualistic streak, such a drive is of course highly suspect; some people may not be so sensitive to it, but having seen the Hitlerjugend in action suffices for the rest of your life to be very wary of "team spirit". Very.
beach watches tides
When building sand castles on the beach, we can ignore the waves but should watch the tide.