Edsger W. Dijkstra: Programming (page 2)

Edsger W. Dijkstra was Dutch computer scientist. Explore interesting quotes on programming.
Edsger W. Dijkstra: 136   quotes 2   likes

“The major cause [of the software crisis] is that the machines have become several orders of magnitude more powerful! To put it quite bluntly: as long as there were no machines, programming was no problem at all; when we had a few weak computers, programming became a mild problem, and now we have gigantic computers, programming has become an equally gigantic problem. In this sense the electronic industry has not solved a single problem, it has only created them, it has created the problem of using its products.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra

1970s, The Humble Programmer (1972)

Problem , Sense

“For a number of years I have been familiar with the observation that the quality of programmers is a decreasing function of the density of go to statements in the programs they produce. More recently I discovered why the use of the go to statement has such disastrous effects, and I became convinced that the go to statement should be abolished from all "higher level" programming languages.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra

1960s

“This is generally true: any sizeable piece of program, or even a complete program package, is only a useful tool that can be used in a reliable fashion, provided that the documentation pertinent for the user is much shorter than the program text. If any machine or system requires a very thick manual, its usefulness becomes for that very circumstance subject to doubt!”

Edsger W. Dijkstra

Dijkstra, "On the reliability of programs" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD303.html (EWD 303).
Unknown date

Fashion

“Don't blame me for the fact that competent programming, as I view it as an intellectual possibility, will be too difficult for "the average programmer"”

Edsger W. Dijkstra

you must not fall into the trap of rejecting a surgical technique because it is beyond the capabilities of the barber in his shop around the corner.
Dijkstra (1975) Comments at a Symposium http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD05xx/EWD512.html (EWD 512).
1970s

“Some people found error messages they couldn't ignore more annoying than wrong results, and, when judging the relative merits of programming languages, some still seem to equate "the ease of programming" with the ease of making undetected mistakes.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra

Dijkstra (1976-79) On the foolishness of "natural language programming" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD667.html (EWD 667)
1970s

People , Error