Edsger Dijkstra

Scientist

1930-05-11

Quotes by Edsger Dijkstra

• 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 lurking suspicion that something could be simplified is the world's richest source of rewarding challenges.

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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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• APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.

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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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• 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.

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• 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.

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• Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.

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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.

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