Zach Leach > Zach's Quotes

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

“Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

“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.”
― Edsger Dijkstra

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

“If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

“Your obligation is that of active participation. You should not act as knowledge-absorbing sponges, but as whetstones on which we can all sharpen our wits”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

“The computing scientist’s main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra