“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

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Edsger W. Dijkstra 68

Dutch computer scientist 1930–2002

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“Although the medium is the message, the controls go beyond programming. The restraints are always directed to the “content,” which is always another medium. The content of the press is literary statement, as the content of the book is speech, and the content of the movie is the novel. So the effects of radio are quite independent of its programming.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 267

“Rewarding incompetence and ignorance increases the number of incompetent programmers. Designing programming languages and tools so incompetent programmers can feel better about themselves is not the way to go.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: New Lisp ? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.functional/msg/b69c767370ee7c43 (Usenet article).
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“Please don't fall into the trap of believing that I am terribly dogmatic about [the go to statement]. I have the uncomfortable feeling that others are making a religion out of it, as if the conceptual problems of programming could be solved by a simple trick, by a simple form of coding discipline!”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

Dijkstra (1973) in personal communication to Donald Knuth, quoted in Knuth's "Structured Programming with go to Statements".
1970s

“The result of the implementation, the logical design, is traditionally shown as a series of block diagrams. These blocks represent in effect a series of statements, Actually, a direct presentation of these statements is more suitable and, although less familiar, more easily understood. The Harvard Mark IV was to large degree designed and described by such statements, as has been the case with several subsequent developments.”

Gerrit Blaauw (1924–2018) Dutch computer scientist

Source: Computer architecture (1972), p. 154

“Painting has a nature which is not entirely translatable into verbal language. I think painting is a language, actually. It's linguistic in a sense, but not in a verbal sense. I think that one wants from painting a sense of life. And I think that is true. One wants to be able to use all of one’s facilities in all aspects of one’s life... You may have to choose how to respond and you may respond in a limited way, but you have been aware that you are alive. The final suggestion, the final statement, has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

interview with Johns conducted in 1975 at Johns’ studio by Yoshiaki Tono, as quoted in Jasper Johns, Writings, sketchbook Notes, Interviews, ed. Kirk Varnedoe, Moma New York, 1996, p. 89
1970s

“Go To statement considered harmful.”

Niklaus Wirth (1934) Swiss computer scientist

Often attributed to Edsger Wybe Dijkstra, but it was the title to a letter in CACM 11, 3 (March, 1968). However The original title of " A Case against the GO TO Statement http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD02xx/EWD215.html" (EWD215, PDF here http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD215.PDF, ACM has its own copy http://www.acm.org/classics/oct95 online) was changed by the editor Niklaus Wirth, to speed up publication. Dijkstra explains it himself in EWD1308 http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD13xx/EWD1308.html (see near the end of the article).

“Whenever a liberal begins a statement with "I don't know which is more frightening," you know the answer is going to be pretty clear.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

Source: 2003, Treason : Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (2003), p. 6.

“The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, August
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-virginia-protests-idUSKCN1AV0WT Trump, again, casts blame on both sides for deadly violence in Virginia] at a press briefing in Trump Tower, New York (15 August 2017) Transcripts: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/15/read-the-transcript-of-donald-trumps-jaw-dropping-press-conference.html https://www.vox.com/2017/8/15/16154028/trump-press-conference-transcript-charlottesville note: 2010s, 2017, August

“He would go there and clear up everything, make a statement. What statement? He did not know. He was the statement, and since it was all so clear to him, surely he would be able to make it clear to others.”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

Eight Men (1961)

“The statement which has been made by the Leader of the Opposition was that the intelligence has stopped. I don't know whether that was a personal confession or whether it was a statement of position.”

David Lange (1942–2005) New Zealand politician and 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand

Referring to Jim McLay's comments on the effect of the nuclear ships ban on the exchange of military intelligence with New Zealand's allies.
Source: Gliding on the Lino: The Wit of David Lange, compiled by David Barber, 1987.

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Edsger W. Dijkstra 68

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