Edsger Dijkstra Quotes

A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.

A most important, but also most elusive, aspect of any tool is its influence on the habits of those who train themselves in its use. If the tool is a programming language this influence is, whether we like it or not, an influence on our thinking habits.... A programming language is a tool that has profound influence on our thinking habits.

C++ is designed to allow you to express ideas, but if you don't have ideas or don't have any clue about how to express them, C++ doesn't offer much help.

I will, in fact, claim that the difference between a bad programmer and a good one is whether he considers his code or his data structures more important. Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.

Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.

To me programming is more than an important practical art. It is also a gigantic undertaking in the foundations of knowledge.

The tools we use have a profound and devious influence on our thinking habits, and therefore on our thinking abilities.

C is a razor-sharp tool, with which one can create an elegant and efficient program or a bloody mess.

I think everyone should get a little exposure to computer science because it really forces you to think in a slightly different way, and it's a skill that you can apply in life in general, whether you end up in computer science or not.

The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity.

Now, the reason that we think computer science is about computers is pretty much the same reason that the Egyptians thought geometry was about surveying instruments. And that is, when some field is just getting started and you don't really understand it very well, it's very easy to confuse the essence of what you're doing with the tools that you use.

A powerful programming language is more than just a means for instructing a computer to perform tasks. The language also serves as a framework within which we organize our ideas about processes.

Learn when and how to use different data structures and their algorithms in your own code. This is harder as a student, as the problem assignments you'll work through just won't impart this knowledge. That's fine.

In my daily work, I work on very large, complex, distributed systems built out of many Python modules and packages. The focus is very similar to what you find, for example, in Java and, in general, in systems programming languages.

I have a very linear mind.

I grew up as a computer scientist, and I've always been fascinated by algorithms.

WHAT a person thinks is determined by HOW a person thinks.

A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.

Intelligent thinking means an increment of freedom in action-an emancipation from chance and fatality. 'Thought' represents the suggestion of a way of response that is different from that which would have been followed if intelligent observation had not effected an inference as to the future.

The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements.

I think that computer programming shows in my writing. Often when I write about computer programmers I'll write about the way that they see the world and they structure the world.

In order to begin an analysis, there must already be a synthesis present in the mind.

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

When you program, you want to think you're writing the best possible program for the... for the task you're trying to solve.

Programming is not a science. Programming is a craft.