Edsger W. Dijkstra - People Quotes

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Several people have told me that my inability to suffer fools gladly is one of my main weaknesses.

Edsger W. Dijkstra

In the wake of the Cultural Revolution and now of the recession I observe a mounting pressure to co-operate and to promote "teamwork". For its anti-individualistic streak, such a drive is of course highly suspect; some people may not be so sensitive to it, but having seen the Hitlerjugend in action suffices for the rest of your life to be very wary of "team spirit". Very.

Edsger W. Dijkstra

We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people: sometimes they follow it!

Edsger W. Dijkstra

How do we convince people that in programming simplicity and clarity —in short: what mathematicians call "elegance"— are not a dispensable luxury, but a crucial matter that decides between success and failure?

Edsger W. Dijkstra

The required techniques of effective reasoning are pretty formal, but as long as programming is done by people that don't master them, the software crisis will remain with us and will be considered an incurable disease. And you know what incurable diseases do: they invite the quacks and charlatans in, who in this case take the form of Software Engineering gurus.

Edsger W. Dijkstra