“FORTRAN's tragic fate has been its wide acceptance, mentally chaining thousands and thousands of programmers to our past mistakes.”
1970s, The Humble Programmer (1972)
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Edsger W. Dijkstra 68
Dutch computer scientist 1930–2002Related quotes

“War its thousands slays, Peace its ten thousands.”
Source: Death: A Poetical Essay (1759), Line 178.

“A thousand forms and passions glow
Upon the world-wide canvas.”
The Ancient And Modern Muses
Context: A thousand forms and passions glow
Upon the world-wide canvas. So
With larger scope our art we ply;
And if the crown be harder won,
Diviner rays around it run,
With strains of fuller harmony.

Transhumanism (1957)
Context: As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future. This cosmic self-awareness is being realized in one tiny fragment of the universe — in a few of us human beings. Perhaps it has been realized elsewhere too, through the evolution of conscious living creatures on the planets of other stars. But on this our planet, it has never happened before.

Interview with Robert Whytman for The Guardian (11 December 1979)

Source: The Development of Mathematics (1940), p. 283
Context: The mistakes and unresolved difficulties of the past in mathematics have always been the opportunities of its future; and should analysis ever appear to be without or blemish, its perfection might only be that of death.