Edsger W. Dijkstra: Use

Edsger W. Dijkstra was Dutch computer scientist. Explore interesting quotes on use.
Edsger W. Dijkstra: 136 quotes3 likes

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

Edsger W. Dijkstra

Dijkstra (1970) &quot; Notes On Structured Programming http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD249.PDF&quot; (EWD249), Section 3 (&quot;On The Reliability of Mechanisms&quot;), corollary at the end. <br class="br">1970s <br class="br">Variant: Program testing can be a very effective way to show the presence of bugs, but it is hopelessly inadequate for showing their absence.

“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

Dijkstra (2000) &quot;Answers to questions from students of Software Engineering&quot; http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD13xx/EWD1305.html (EWD 1305). <br class="br">2000s

“Industry suffers from the managerial dogma that for the sake of stability and continuity, the company should be independent of the competence of individual employees. Hence industry rejects any methodological proposal that can be viewed as making intellectual demands on its work force. Since in the US the influence of industry is more pervasive than elsewhere, the above dogma hurts American computing science most. The moral of this sad part of the story is that as long as computing science is not allowed to save the computer industry, we had better see to it that the computer industry does not kill computing science.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra Computing Science

Dijkstra (1999) &quot;Computing Science: Achievements and Challenges&quot; https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD12xx/EWD1284.html (EWD 1284). <br class="br">1990s

“Automatic computers have now been with us for a quarter of a century. They have had a great impact on our society in their capacity of tools, but in that capacity their influence will be but a ripple on the surface of our culture, compared with the much more profound influence they will have in their capacity of intellectual challenge without precedent in the cultural history of mankind.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra

Dijkstra (1972) The Humble Programmer http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD340.html (EWD340). <br class="br">1970s

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

Edsger W. Dijkstra

1970s, How do we tell truths that might hurt? (1975)

“About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra

1970s, How do we tell truths that might hurt? (1975)

“FORTRAN, 'the infantile disorder', by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra

1970s, How do we tell truths that might hurt? (1975)

“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)

“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, &quot;On the reliability of programs&quot; https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD303.html (EWD 303). <br class="br">Unknown date

“Using PL/1 must be like flying a plane with 7000 buttons, switches and handles to manipulate in the cockpit.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra

1970s, The Humble Programmer (1972)