"Yes, I share your concern: how to program……" — Edsger Dijkstra
"Yes, I share your concern: how to program well -though a teachable topic- is hardly taught. The situation is similar to that in mathematics, where the explicit curriculum is confined to mathematical results; how to do mathematics is something the student must absorb by osmosis, so to speak. One reason for preferring symbol-manipulating, calculating arguments is that their design is much better teachable than the design of verbal/pictorial arguments. Large-scale introduction of courses on such calculational methodology, however, would encounter unsurmoutable political problems."
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Edsger Dijkstra
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73 Quotes by Edsger Dijkstra
Edsger Dijkstra has 73 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
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Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.
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If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.
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Why has elegance found so little following? That is the reality of it. Elegance has the disadvantage, if that's what…
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I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I…
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APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.
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Lisp has jokingly been called "the most intelligent way to misuse a computer". I think that description is a great…
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The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can…
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Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable…
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In the good old days physicists repeated each other's experiments, just to be sure. Today they stick to FORTRAN, so…
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The tools we use have a profound and devious influence on our thinking habits, and therefore on our thinking abilities.
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We shall do a much better programming job, provided that we approach the task with a full appreciation of its…
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More Absorb Quotes
This quote is filed under Absorb Quotes,
one of 407 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
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American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it.
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It is a scientific fact that your body will not absorb cholesterol if you take it from another person's plate.
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To love someone is to isolate him from the world, wipe out every trace of him, dispossess him of his…
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All satire is blind to the forces liberated by decay. Which is why total decay has absorbed the forces of…
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A good culture in a hospital can absorb and manage a few bad nurses, but once the culture becomes bad…
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I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so…
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We should so provide for old age that it may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it…
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That's the best thing about writing, when you're in that zone, you're porous, ready to absorb the solution.
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It was stumbling on to really the bible of the blues, you know, and a very powerful drug to be…
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