Edsger W. Dijkstra

“Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”

“The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.”

“The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.”

“The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.”

“Beauty is our business.”

“A programming language is a tool that has a profound influence on our thinking habits.”

“Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.”

“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.”

“Being abstract is something profoundly different from being vague.”

“The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.”

“The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity.”

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

“Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a quality that decides between success and failure.”

“If you want more effective programmers, you will discover that they should not waste their time debugging, they should not introduce the bugs to start with.”

“Simplicity is a prerequisite for reliability.”