Edsger Dijkstra Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Students, Impossible, Programming

  Edsger W. Dijkstra (2012). “Selected Writings on Computing: A personal Perspective”, p.130, Springer Science & Business Media

  9 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Funny, Debugging, Bugs

  110 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Bugs, Absence, Program

  "Notes On Structured Programming" by Edsger Dijkstra, April 1970.

  45 Copy quote

• Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Simplicity

  "How do we tell truths that might hurt?" by Edsger Dijkstra, www.cs.virginia.edu. June 18, 1975.

  31 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Learning, California, Ideas

  24 Copy quote

• The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Art, Programming, Complexity

  "Notes On Structured Programming" by Edsger Dijkstra, April 1970.

  9 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Hard Work, Discipline, Simplicity

  48 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Science, Technology, Telescopes

  56 Copy quote

• 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

  Silly, Effort, Mind

  6 Copy quote

• Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Hard Work, Appreciate, Simplicity

  "On the nature of Computing Science" by Edsger Dijkstra, www.cs.utexas.edu. August 10, 1984.

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  50 Copy quote

• Perfecting oneself is as much unlearning as it is learning.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Oneself

  30 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Technology, Thinking, Swim

  Interview with Jack Schofield, www.theguardian.com. August 19, 2002.

  84 Copy quote

• 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

  Trying, Quality, Routine

  34 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• Programming in Basic causes brain damage.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Brain, Damage, Causes

  14 Copy quote

• The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Clever, Humility, Skulls

  "The humble programmer" by Edsger Dijkstra in "Communications of the ACM", Volume 15, Issue 10 (pp. 859-866), dl.acm.org. October 1972.

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Depth, Behind You, Blame

  14 Copy quote

• Teaching COBOL ought to be regarded as a criminal act.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Teaching, Criminals, Cobol

  38 Copy quote

• 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

  Debugging, Want, Waste

  "The Humble Programmer". Edsger Dijkstra's ACM Turing Award lecture, "Communications of the ACM", Volume 15, No. 10, www.cs.utexas.edu. October 1972.

  11 Copy quote

• Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Learning, Mastery, Tongue

  Edsger W. Dijkstra (2012). “Selected Writings on Computing: A personal Perspective”, p.130, Springer Science & Business Media

  24 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Branches, Mathematics, Programming

  Edsger W. Dijkstra (2012). “Selected Writings on Computing: A personal Perspective”, p.129, Springer Science & Business Media

  66 Copy quote

• The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Confused, Challenges, Scientist

  8 Copy quote

• Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Jargon, Aim, Brevity

  8 Copy quote

• … 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

  Maturity, Engineering, Snakes

  9 Copy quote

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