Top 15 Edsger W. Dijkstra Quotes

Dutch computer scientist (1930–2002)

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Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (11 May 1930 – 6 August 2002) was a Dutch computer scientist, programmer, software engineer, mathematician, and science essayist.

Bio from: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Native Name: Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

Alternative Names: Dijkstra • E. W. Dijkstra • Edsger Dijkstra • EWD

From Wikidata (CC0)

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.

The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

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.

Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes

Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.

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

"I mean, 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."

The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.

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

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

Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.

It is not only the violin that shapes the violinist, we are all shaped by the tools we train ourselves to use, and in this respect programming languages have a devious influence: they shape our thinking habits.

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.

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

Your obligation is that of active participation. You should not act as knowledge-absorbing sponges, but as whetstones on which we can all sharpen our wits