Edsger Dijkstra Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Art, Programming, Complexity

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

  7 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

  106 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Science, Technology, Telescopes

  52 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.

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• 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

  46 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Learning, California, Ideas

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• 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

  47 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.

  44 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Oneself

  29 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.

  10 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.

  82 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

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• 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

  33 Copy quote

• Programming in Basic causes brain damage.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Brain, Damage, Causes

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  6 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.

  11 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

  13 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

  65 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

  6 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Teaching, Criminals, Cobol

  36 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.

  10 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Technology, People, Today

  24 Copy quote

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Congratulations, Luxury, Elegance

  37 Copy quote

• 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

  Powerful, Machines, Computer

  "Visuals for BP's Venture Research Conference" by Edsger Dijkstra, www.cs.utexas.edu. June 5, 1986.

  3 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

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