I've read them all. While they are fun to read as their commentary come from a place of logic, there is a lot of emotion baked in and little room for being open minded about potential alternatives that could find their ways to reality. Dijkstra was very smart but you can tell thinking is a little closed, which is not objectively bad, but it happens a little too much for my taste.
I love Dijkstra’s writings, but, yes, he had very strong opinions that at times were abrasive. Alan Kay said it best when he said, “arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras.”
Some famous Dijkstra quotes:
“It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.”
“Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.”
“I found the UCSC campus not an inspiring place, and the longer I stayed there, the more depressing it became. The place seemed most successful in hiding all the usual symptoms of a seat of learning. In the four-person apartment we occupied, only one of the four desks had a reading lamp, and the chairs in front of the desks were so low that writing at the desks was not comfortable. Probably it doesn't matter. Can UCSC students write? Do they need to? The notice boards showed ads from typing services "Grammar and spelling corrected.". (One of these ads itself contained a spelling error!)”
> I love Dijkstra’s writings, but, yes, he had very strong opinions that at times were abrasive. Alan Kay said it best when he said, “arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras.”
alankay on May 30, 2016 | next [–]
This quote keeps on showing up out of context. Edsger and I got along quite well. He loved to be the way he was and pushed it. ...
(and yes, I left that out of context so that people would go read the whole thing)
