My favorite Dijkstra quote:
> The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.
Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)
111–120 of 229 posts
Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, time will tell on this rivalry. OOP may not be as harmful as GOTO, but it does seem to be falling out of favor. Dijkstras point of view may be as vindicated with one as with the other.
Being correct or incorrect is orthogonal to arrogance.
I agree, but this can also be tactical since for whatever reason it's rare in certain cultures that quiet humility is listened to. Also confidence or bluntness may be easily mistaken for arrogance. IDK about Kay but lots of Americans who think they like a "straight shooter" are still unprepared for a Dutch-style discussion
Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)
#113Dijkstra 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…
I will get downvoted for that bur I will ask anyway. So what exactly are his achievements? After reading the article it seems that he mostly produced hot takes, while others did the actual heavy lifing. Goto considered harmful? And some algorithm that would probably be found by someone else? Will Linus get a monument made of pure gold when he dies?
I mean, lookup his wikipedia.
He won a turing award for advocating for structured control flow. That is the modern standard style for programming. He contributed a number of algorithms including the shortest path algorithm.
Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most real world problems don’t fit into neatly into hierarchical structures. OOP pushes you towards trying to model everything in the world an objects with strictly defined operations that can be performed on, where those actions are determined by the data type itself. You end up being forced to co-mingle your data structure design, with your data processing design. Which tends to be rather unhelpful. Keeping your da…
So can you tell me which programming paradigm actually solves these problems that OOP has? And also, can you give me a huge non-OOP codebase that shows in practice how it is better than the potential OOP implementation?
Paradigms don’t solve each other’s problems. They’re just another approach that may be better in specific contexts and you can even mix them. Although today, some languages is veering towards using structs and the like for data models and classes as logic containers (swift, kotlin).
As for huge codebases, everyone knows that line of codes does not equal quality.
Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)
#115Earlier 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.
Rust is a quite functional language, C# has been incorporating (aka stealing from F# :)) functional features for years starting with LINQ and ending with advanced forms like pattern matching on sequences (list patterns). I believe all kinds of Python frameworks too like to incorporate FP into their APIs, and of course, there are list comprehensions.
LINQ is arguably stolen from Haskell, not F#. It is closer to ‘do’ notation than Computation Expressions (which has more features).
The fact that Eric Meijer was very active in the Haskell community, I think, pretty much confirms that.
Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least as I see my colleagues who buy special keyboards to type code faster and still being hellishly unproductive, deleting and rewriting while I prefer to think before typing and have a solution that works when I type it in instead of iterating over solutions that cannot work in the first place. When I type it's fast, I just don't do it so much compared to my peers, but I am more productive delivering working cod…
People buy special keyboards because they enjoy using them, not because they’re faster to type on.
If they tell me they buy them to type faster on then I tend to assume that's the reason.
Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
People buy special keyboards because they enjoy using them, not because they’re faster to type on.
If they tell me they buy them to type faster on then I tend to assume that's the reason.
I think that’s an incorrect assumption. People are often bad at articulating why they enjoy something.
Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)
#118Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least as I see my colleagues who buy special keyboards to type code faster and still being hellishly unproductive, deleting and rewriting while I prefer to think before typing and have a solution that works when I type it in instead of iterating over solutions that cannot work in the first place. When I type it's fast, I just don't do it so much compared to my peers, but I am more productive delivering working cod…
People buy special keyboards because they enjoy using them, not because they’re faster to type on.
Or sometimes 'cus it's less pain-inducing for the wrists
Re: Edsger Dijkstra carried computer science on his shoulders (2020)
#120I like Dijkstra's quote: "The question of whether machines can think is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim."
> There is also a different approach to the [unification] problem, which is highly influential though it seems to me not only foreign to the sciences but also close to senseless. This approach divorces the cognitive sciences from a biological setting, and seeks tests to determine whether some object “manifests intelligence” (“plays chess,” “understands Chinese,” or whatever). […]
> There is a great deal of often heated debate about these matters in the literature of the cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of mind, but it is hard to see that any serious question has been posed. The question of whether a computer is playing chess, or doing long division, or translating Chinese, is like the question of whether robots can murder or airplanes can fly — or people; after all, the “flight” of the Olympic long jump champion is only an order of magnitude short of that of the chicken champion (so I’m told). These are questions of decision, not fact; decision as to whether to adopt a certain metaphoric extension of common usage.