Edsger Dijkstra

[Posted August 7, 2002 by corbet]

From:		Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
To:		ip <ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com>
Subject:		IP: Edsger Wybe Dijkstra,
Date:		Wed, 07 Aug 2002 11:44:38 -0400


Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 11:01:28 -0400
>From: Balachander Krishnamurthy <bala@research.att.com>
>
>
>
>Grateful for most that has befallen him, has peacefully passed away,
>    Edsger Wybe Dijkstra,
>our husband and father.
>
>We hold him very dear.
>
>The cremation will take place on
>
>Saterday, August 10th, 12:30 PM at
>Somerenseweg 120
>Heeze
>the Netherlands
>
>Maria C. Dijkstra Debets
>Marcus J. Dijkstra
>Femke E. Dijkstra
>Rutger M. Dijktra
>
>Please forward this message to whomever you feel missing in the
>recipient list.

------ End of Forwarded Message

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A few quotes attributed to him

Posted Aug 7, 2002 21:18 UTC (Wed) by nas (subscriber, #17) [Link]

"The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague" (from 1972 Turing Award Lecture)

"Program testing can best show the presence of errors but never their absence"

"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."

"If you don't know what your program is supposed to do, you'd better not start writing it."

"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence."

"The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay."