Edsger W. Dijkstra > Quotes

“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.”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

“The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim.”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

“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”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

“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 W. Dijkstra

“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 W. Dijkstra

“Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code. ”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

“Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

“I think it wise, and only honest, to warn you that my goal is immodest. It is not my purpose to "transfer knowledge" to you that, subsequently, you can forget again. My purpose is no less than to effectuate in each of you a noticeable, irreversable change. I want you to see and absorb calculational arguments so effective that you will never be able to forget that exposure.”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

“Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

“The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra