Edsger Dijkstra

Attributed

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

• "The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim."

• "I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself: 'Dijkstra would not have liked this', well that would be enough immortality for me."

• "In the good old days physicists repeated each other's experiments, just to be sure. Today they stick to FORTRAN, so that they can share each other's programs, bugs included."

• "The prisoner falls in love with his chains."

• "Teaching BASIC should be a criminal offense."

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

• "FORTRAN, "the infantile disorder", by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use."

• "Do only what only I can do"