Edsger Dijkstra Quotes

"There should be no such thing as boring mathematics."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Mathematics)

"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Mind, Teaching)

"The traditional mathematician recognizes and appreciates mathematical elegance when he sees it. I propose to go one step further, and to consider elegance an essential ingredient of mathematics: if it is clumsy, it is not mathematics."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Elegance, Mathematics)

"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Computer, Question)

"The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Quality, Ability)

"About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead."
- Edsger Dijkstra

"The students that, like the wild animal being prepared for its tricks in the circus called "life", expects only training as sketched above, will be severely disappointed: by his standards he will learn next to nothing."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Being, Nothing, Students, Training, Will)

"Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Brevity, Jargon)

"Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Idea, Programming)

"Perfecting oneself is as much unlearning as it is learning."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Learning)

"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
(Related: Feeling, Mathematicians, Self, Thinking, Tradition)

"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
(Related: Hope, Potential, Programming, Students)

"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!"
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Bugs, Testing)

"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."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Immortality, Now, Quick, Years)

"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
(Related: Excellence, Perfection, Spirit)

"The lurking suspicion that something could be simplified is the world's richest source of rewarding challenges."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Suspicion, World)

"Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Success, Failure, Elegance, Luxury)

"Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Experience, Weapons)

"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."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Humility)

"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."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Mistake, Future, Language, Perfection, Programming)

"Mathematicians are like managers - they want improvement without change."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Change, Improvement, Managers, Mathematicians, Want)

"Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Mathematicians, Mathematics, Programming)

"Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Simplicity)

"Teaching to unsuspecting youngsters the effective use of formal methods is one of the joys of life because it is so extremely rewarding."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Life, Teaching)

"Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
- Edsger Dijkstra
(Related: Computers, Science, Astronomy)