If you want more effective programmers, you will discover that they should not waste their time debugging, they should not introduce the bugs to start with. Edsger Dijkstra More Quotes by Edsger Dijkstra More Quotes From Edsger Dijkstra Many mathematicians derive part of their self-esteem by feeling themselves the proud heirs of a long tradition of rational thinking; I am afraid they idealize their cultural ancestors. Edsger Dijkstra self-esteem long thinking 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. Edsger Dijkstra use mind years John von Neumann draws attention to what seemed to him a contrast. He remarked that for simple mechanisms, it is often easier to describe how they work than what they do, while for more complicated mechanisms, it is usually the other way around. Edsger Dijkstra learning simple attention I would therefore like to posit that computing's central challenge, how not to make a mess of it, has not yet been met. Edsger Dijkstra mess mets challenges … what society overwhelmingly asks for is snake oil. Of course, the snake oil has the most impressive names — otherwise you would be selling nothing — like “Structured Analysis and Design”, “Software Engineering”, “Maturity Models”, “Management Information Systems”, “Integrated Project Support Environments” “Object Orientation” and “Business Process Re-engineering”. Edsger Dijkstra engineering snakes maturity There should be no such thing as boring mathematics. Edsger Dijkstra mathematics boring should Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well. Edsger Dijkstra ridiculous serious problem APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. Edsger Dijkstra language perfection mistake 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 machines computer powerful It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs. Edsger Dijkstra tasks giving needs 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. Edsger Dijkstra excellence spirit perfection 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. Edsger Dijkstra effort mind silly Several people have told me that my inability to suffer fools gladly is one of my main weaknesses. Edsger Dijkstra weakness suffering people ... as a slow-witted human being I have a very small head and I had better learn to live with it and to respect my limitations and give them full credit, rather than to try to ignore them, for the latter vain effort will be punished by failure. Edsger Dijkstra effort design giving A convincing demonstration of correctness being impossible as long as the mechanism is regarded as a black box, our only hope lies in not regarding the mechanism as a black box. Edsger Dijkstra black long lying PL/1, the fatal disease, belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set. Edsger Dijkstra disease humorous problem Write a paper promising salvation, make it a "structured" something or a "virtual" something, or "abstract," "distributed" or "higher-order" or "applicative" and you can almost be certain of having started a new cult. Edsger Dijkstra paper writing order Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon. Edsger Dijkstra brevity jargon aim 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. Edsger Dijkstra omission would-be challenges 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. Edsger Dijkstra trying long world
