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Dijkstra on stage #programming

🕒︎ - 2022-06-21

If you ever looked a graphs (in computer science) you've come across the name Dijkstra. He is also known for a paper that became sort of a proto-meme: "Go To Statement Considered Harmful", and a number of other papers and pithy quotes, like this:

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

and:

"I would therefore like to posit that computing's central challenge 'How not to make a mess of it,' has not been met."

Watching this video: A Programmer’s Early Memories by Edsger W. Dijkstra from The International Research Conference in the History of Computing at Los Alamos, 1976 make my toes curl - the contrast to e.g. Donald Knuth's or Konrad Zuze's stage presence is striking.

🕒︎ - 2022-06-21 - 0 comments

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