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Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders

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Re: Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders

#141

Post by jayjohn436 »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #92
rramadass wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They sure do. Here is Freeman Dyson; the Physicist without a PhD ( https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-math-puzzle-worthy-of-freem... ); Oh, yes. I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system is an abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German professors in the 19th century, and it works well under those conditions. It’s good for a very small number of people who are going to spend their…

My friend once said: - B.S. = bull shit - M.S. = more shit - PhD = piled higher & deeper

Permanent Head Damage is what my advisor would tell me ;)

Re: Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders

#142

Post by akshat_h »

enumjorge wrote: post #32
xenocyon wrote: post #12

It is remarkable how much he contravened modern academic norms: no work to bring in external funding, relatively few papers, very little collaboration, almost no PhD students. It's not an exaggeration to say that a young researcher with these characteristics today would likely get fired from any high-ranked American research university before even coming up for tenure review. Perhaps our modern academic metrics of me…

That reminds me of the anecdote where one of Google’s hiring committees realized that they wouldn’t have gotten hired had they been judged by their own standards. It makes you wonder how much talent gets filtered out when we apply very stringent metrics to grade candidates.

If anyone is curious, it might be this talk.

Moishe Lettvin - What I Learned Doing 250 Interviews at Google. It is on Etsy Eng channel Youtube url with the relevant time frame https://youtu.be/r8RxkpUvxK0?t=532

Re: Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders

#143

Post by [deleted] »

texuf wrote: post #70
enumjorge wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of the anecdote where one of Google’s hiring committees realized that they wouldn’t have gotten hired had they been judged by their own standards. It makes you wonder how much talent gets filtered out when we apply very stringent metrics to grade candidates.

I can't find it but I saw a presentation (I think from someone at Etsy) where the presenter described being on an interview panel that failed all of the candidates in a batch, only to find out that they had been given their own packets to review.

[deleted]

Re: Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders

#144

Post by microtherion »

Beldin wrote: post #118
mcguire wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. I can't really speak to his career before he came to UT Austin in 1984, he was already very famous (Bjarne Stroustroup at Texas A&M/Columbia or Brian Kernighan at Princeton famous); if I remember, his chair was created for him as a full professor and without many of the usual duties of a professor. (One of his stipulations was that he not be made Chairman of the department.) According to the article, as a yo…

> Professor in the mathematics department of the Eindhoven University of Technology from 1962-1973. (As I understand, the "external funding" thing is less of a problem in mathematics. Also, I have no idea how tenure works there.) Back then, i think full professors were appointed by the Queen. (Certainly so for Beatrix, but he became a prof before her inauguration) Being appointed by the Queen made it really difficult…

> Being appointed by the Queen made it really difficult to fire you

Monarchies today being at that awkward stage where they wield enough protection to prevent somebody from being fired but no longer enough power to get them beheaded…

Re: Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders

#145

Post by jakespoon »

Jtsummers wrote: post #127
jakespoon wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, looking back from 2020, did Backus oversell it? We aren't there yet but it still looks like the right direction to me.

I will agree, Backus' ideas have panned out in many ways. Not having read his lecture in quite a while I can't comment on whether or not, in 1977, he was overselling the idea at the time, especially as I'm not familiar with the state of the art in research at the time (having been born 5 years later, and CS concepts not being taught in chronological order). Regardless, your original comment made two absurd claims: 1.…

I should have been clear with my response that I accept and agree with your criticism of my post.

"He tried to destroy it" is too strong. I will back down from that.

Re: Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders

#146

Post by [deleted] »

jamez wrote: post #94

Good read. For anyone interested in seeing the human side of Dijkstra, I recommend this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCCigccBzIU When I watched it I was both studying Computer Science and learning Dutch, so it was twice as interesting. The version I linked provides English subtitles.

[deleted]

Re: Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders

#147

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

mcguire wrote: post #96
gautamdivgi wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re right. The right of passage for most US computer science PhD programs is publications in the “right” journals and conferences. If you don’t publish you will rarely get past your thesis proposal. I think there are very few, very select professors in the US that prohibit publishing prior to graduating. But their count is likely in the single digits. Also, by some miracle you manage to graduate by minimal publish…

Yes, it's true. EWD published almost nothing. http://www.netlib.org/bibnet/authors/d/dijkstra-edsger-w.htm... (The ones marked "circulated privately" are the EWD series.)

The best teachers I’ve had published little or nothing: they were teachers first, but researchers who also taught. It’s a shame the modern colleges and universities don’t make this really possible anymore.

Re: Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders

#148

Post by rramadass »

ativzzz wrote: post #61
rramadass wrote: post #33

A well written portrait of a truly great and original "Scientist" in the true sense of the term. I have always wondered why his approach of constructing correctness proof along with the implementation never really caught on. I think it was what allowed him to come up with his novel algorithms. Have we lost something of the real essence of logical thinking here? Perhaps the paper mentioned in the article; Social Proce…

Probably because the cost associated with constructing such proofs for the vast majority of modern software use cases (like showing ads on 8 different browsers) is too high (cheaper to just hire QA teams), and most programmers are not simultaneously software engineers, computer scientists, and mathematicians.

> cost associated with constructing such proofs ... is too high

People assume this is true because it has been repeated endlessly. I think it is an issue of granularity. For example; both Dijkstra's GCL and Hoare's Triples (fine granularity) vs. Meyer's DbC (coarse granularity) can be expressed using Assertions to build Preconditions/Postconditions/Invariants as "correctness proof" throughout a real-world software system. But their systematic usage is never taught nor enforced; we have to learn it by trial and error.

Re: Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders

#149

Post by krelian »

rramadass wrote: post #39
xenocyon wrote: post #12

It is remarkable how much he contravened modern academic norms: no work to bring in external funding, relatively few papers, very little collaboration, almost no PhD students. It's not an exaggeration to say that a young researcher with these characteristics today would likely get fired from any high-ranked American research university before even coming up for tenure review. Perhaps our modern academic metrics of me…

They sure do. Here is Freeman Dyson; the Physicist without a PhD ( https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-math-puzzle-worthy-of-freem... ); Oh, yes. I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system is an abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German professors in the 19th century, and it works well under those conditions. It’s good for a very small number of people who are going to spend their…

Opened his Wikipedia page out of curiosity and what do you know, some climate change denier decided that his ideas about CO2 level and their effects on climate deserve to be in the opening section.
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