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Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)

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Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)

#41

Post by eesmith »

photonthug wrote: post #6

Lots of interesting threads to chase down but this biographical piece was cool: > together with his wife, he purchased a Volkswagen bus, dubbed the Touring Machine, which they used to explore national parks Maybe not so surprising for a guy who would not indulge in a vcr, cinema, smartphone or even a computer :) more info would be neat if anyone knows from a longer biographic. Photographer? Bird watcher? Hiker? Campe…

You can see the vehicle at https://youtu.be/mLEOZO1GwVc?t=1220 . He and his wife are driving to some sort of camping area.

It's part of a longer interview with him. He also does crossword puzzles.

Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)

#42

Post by personalityson »

rcbdev wrote: post #16

Dijkstra is a wonderful source of memorable quotes and hot takes from the early days of software. A sampling: > “The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.” (Dijkstra, 1972) > “The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.” (Dijkstra…

Ironclad deduction and logic

" a) 2 ≤ i b) 1 c) 2 ≤ i ≤ 12

d) 1 There is a smallest natural number. Exclusion of the lower bound —as in b) and d)— forces for a subsequence starting at the smallest natural number the lower bound as mentioned into the realm of the unnatural numbers. That is ugly, so for the lower bound we prefer the ≤ as in a) and c).

Consider now the subsequences starting at the smallest natural number: inclusion of the upper bound would then force the latter to be unnatural by the time the sequence has shrunk to the empty one. That is ugly, so for the upper bound we prefer I despise this guy

Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)

#43

Post by archixe »

> "Whether written using a fountain pen or typewriter, Dijkstra’s technical reports were composed at a speed of around three words per minute. “The rest of the time,” he remarked, “is taken up by thinking.”9 For Dijkstra, writing and thinking blended into one activity. When preparing a new EWD, he always sought to produce the final version from the outset."

> "He also never purchased a computer. Eventually, in the late 1980s, he was given one as a gift by a computer company, but never used it for word processing. Dijkstra did not own a TV, a VCR, or even a mobile phone. He preferred to avoid the cinema, citing an oversensitivity to visual input. By contrast, he enjoyed attending classical music concerts."

This is very fascinating to me, as a generally unsure person, I can't imagine writing anything this way let alone scientific papers. It certainly requires a deep focus and great knowledge on what you are writing about. I will try to give it a go next time I write out my thoughts.

There is interesting interview where he goes deeper into this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0w1MJHxStg

Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)

#44

Post by HenriTEL »

Poliorcetes wrote: post #30
rcbdev wrote: post #16

Dijkstra is a wonderful source of memorable quotes and hot takes from the early days of software. A sampling: > “The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.” (Dijkstra, 1972) > “The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.” (Dijkstra…

whats wrong with object oriented programming?

Like everything it has its pro and cons. One of the con is that it favors a strong coupling between data and operations. Which mean that a change at one place is likely to change/break things elsewhere.

Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)

#45

Post by FeepingCreature »

personalityson wrote: post #42
rcbdev wrote: post #16

Dijkstra is a wonderful source of memorable quotes and hot takes from the early days of software. A sampling: > “The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.” (Dijkstra, 1972) > “The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.” (Dijkstra…

Ironclad deduction and logic " a) 2 ≤ i b) 1 c) 2 ≤ i ≤ 12 d) 1 There is a smallest natural number. Exclusion of the lower bound —as in b) and d)— forces for a subsequence starting at the smallest natural number the lower bound as mentioned into the realm of the unnatural numbers. That is ugly, so for the lower bound we prefer the ≤ as in a) and c). Consider now the subsequences starting at the smallest natural numbe…

Why? Seems completely correct and good.

You either have an empty range be -1 .. 0, which is ugly, or 0 .. -1, which is also ugly. Thus, start-inclusive, end-exclusive.

Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)

#46

Post by amiga386 »

Munksgaard wrote: post #38
amiga386 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a rather convoluted style It may be standard for them, but it's why functional languages are niche while C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript and Python dominate.

That's a bold claim, do you have any evidence to back that up with? To be clear, I agree that it could be a reason, along with a multitude of others. I think that discerning which is the most substantial reason (if any such exist) is hard if not impossible.

I don't, I just have the feelings and impressions of various programmers, which is anecdata.

I think the pattern that emerges is that the popular languages I listed are multi-discipline, they can be adapted to whichever paradigm you prefer, even if it's a little cumbersome, and over time they adopt the key features of other languages, while retaining their existing benefits. In other words... you can get the best features of Haskell in Python, but you can't get the best features of Python in Haskell?

Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)

#47

Post by Rochus »

Poliorcetes wrote: post #30
rcbdev wrote: post #16

Dijkstra is a wonderful source of memorable quotes and hot takes from the early days of software. A sampling: > “The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.” (Dijkstra, 1972) > “The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.” (Dijkstra…

whats wrong with object oriented programming?

> whats wrong with object oriented programming?

Nothing. It's just one of many useful tools we can use to develop software. It's like with food. Sometimes some people loudly claim that a certain food is unhealthy, and then a few months or years later you read the exact opposite. Fortunately, there are low-pass filters.

Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)

#49

Post by personalityson »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #45
personalityson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironclad deduction and logic " a) 2 ≤ i b) 1 c) 2 ≤ i ≤ 12 d) 1 There is a smallest natural number. Exclusion of the lower bound —as in b) and d)— forces for a subsequence starting at the smallest natural number the lower bound as mentioned into the realm of the unnatural numbers. That is ugly, so for the lower bound we prefer the ≤ as in a) and c). Consider now the subsequences starting at the smallest natural numbe…

Why? Seems completely correct and good. You either have an empty range be -1 .. 0, which is ugly, or 0 .. -1, which is also ugly. Thus, start-inclusive, end-exclusive.

"That is ugly" is what separates math (1-indexing in Fortran, R, SAS, SPSS, Matlab, Mathematica, Julia) from the apes

This and column-major order for matrices (a vector is a column, not a row)

Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)

#50

Post by Kamq »

amiga386 wrote: post #33
rcbdev wrote: post #16

Dijkstra is a wonderful source of memorable quotes and hot takes from the early days of software. A sampling: > “The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.” (Dijkstra, 1972) > “The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.” (Dijkstra…

He's the GOAT of hot takes. His critique of the GOTO statement in a 1968 letter to the ACM, which they retitled "Go-to statement considered harmful", is one of the best remembered critiques in programming history. The phrase "considered harmful" has become a meme and is the go-to phrase (pun intended) for essayists looking to criticise some aspect of computing https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD215.PDF ht…

Dijkstra's take was significantly less spicy. The original title was "A Case Against the Goto Statement". Niklaus Wirth is actually the one who changed it (your wikipedia link covers this).
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