106 Quotes by Edsger Dijkstra

Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.

Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.

The lurking suspicion that something could be simplified is the world's richest source of rewarding challenges.

APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.

I mentioned the non-competitive spirit explicitly, because these days, excellence is a fashionable concept. But excellence is a competitive notion, and that is not what we are heading for: we are heading for perfection.

Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.

Perfecting oneself is as much unlearning as it is learning.

The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings.

Many mathematicians derive part of their self-esteem by feeling themselves the proud heirs of a long tradition of rational thinking; I am afraid they idealize their cultural ancestors.