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When FORTRAN has been called an infantile disorder, full PL/1, with its growth characteristics of a dangerous tumor, could turn out to be a fatal disease.

— Edsger W. Dijkstra The Humble Programmer (1972)

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More quotes by Edsger W. Dijkstra

A picture may be worth a thousand words, a formula is worth a thousand pictures.

The teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery.

Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!

Dijkstra (1970)

The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.

Dijkstra (1988)

It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.

Dijkstra (2000)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Edsger W. Dijkstra (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.