LISP has jokingly been described as "the most intelligent way to misuse a computer." I think that description is a great compliment because it transmits the full flavour of liberation: it has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts.

Edsger Dijkstra

Categorized in : Thinking Numbers Intelligent

If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.

Edsger Dijkstra

debugging bugs funny

The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.

Edsger Dijkstra

simplicity design purpose

Simplicity and elegance are unpopular because they require hard work and discipline to achieve and education to be appreciated.

Edsger Dijkstra

simplicity discipline hard-work

Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!

Edsger Dijkstra

program bugs absence

Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.

Edsger Dijkstra

california learning ideas

Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.

Edsger Dijkstra

telescopes technology science

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?

Edsger Dijkstra

code-quality bells powerful

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

Edsger Dijkstra

chosen competition weapons

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.

Edsger Dijkstra

bugs sticks today

Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really know what we are doing.

Edsger Dijkstra

excitement knows

We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people; sometimes they follow it!

Edsger Dijkstra

advice giving people

Raise your quality standards as high as you can live with, avoid wasting your time on routine problems, and always try to work as closely as possible at the boundary of your abilities. Do this, because it is the only way of discovering how that boundary should be moved forward.

Edsger Dijkstra

routine quality trying

Too few people recognize that the high technology so celebrated today is essentially a mathematical technology.

Edsger Dijkstra

technology today people

Teaching COBOL ought to be regarded as a criminal act.

Edsger Dijkstra

cobol criminals teaching

Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.

Edsger Dijkstra

programming mathematics branches

Perfecting oneself is as much unlearning as it is learning.

Edsger Dijkstra

oneself

If in physics there's something you don't understand, you can always hide behind the uncharted depths of nature. You can always blame God. You didn't make it so complex yourself. But if your program doesn't work, there is no one to hide behind. You cannot hide behind an obstinate nature. If it doesn't work, you've messed up.

Edsger Dijkstra

behind-you blame depth

Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.

Edsger Dijkstra

simplicity inspiring inspirational

Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.

Edsger Dijkstra

luxury elegance congratulations

The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim.

Edsger Dijkstra

technology swim thinking