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The Manuscripts of Edsger W. Dijkstra

cs.utexas.edu

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Re: The Manuscripts of Edsger W. Dijkstra

#5

Post by teddyh »

Something which I occasionally link to, is this: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd08xx/EWD831.PDF>. It not only shows why computer languages should start their indexes at 0 (instead of 1), but also shows why intervals should be specified as lower-inclusive and upper-exclusive.

Re: The Manuscripts of Edsger W. Dijkstra

#6

Post by PaulRobinson »

I once had one of his quote on the back of my business card when I was doing a lot of software dev consultancy: "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes".

I keep meaning to sit down with this site and make my way through it all. Might make more progress if I grab them into an eReader-friendly format and then peruse them more easily when travelling.

Re: The Manuscripts of Edsger W. Dijkstra

#7

Post by sfn42 »

peterkelly wrote: post #2

The most important one in the context of 2025 is this one: On the foolishness of "natural language programming". https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD667...

I love that essay. It's such a joy to read, and even though it is very short and to the point it says so much both about the topic itself and society at large.

And its just so obviously correct.

Re: The Manuscripts of Edsger W. Dijkstra

#8

Post by RoguePixelDC »

quantum_state wrote: post #4

Truly a treasure trove … unfortunately, much of the wisdom from people like Dijkstra seems to have been forgotten or ignored by the software engineering industry.

Since I've been playing around with AI a lot lately, I'd suggest taking a few papers and uploading them for context...seeing good examples vastly improves their subsequent programming ability.

Re: The Manuscripts of Edsger W. Dijkstra

#9

Post by shagie »

I'm amused at EWD498 - How do we tell truths that might hurt? https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD04xx/EWD498...

    Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.

    ...

    The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems is a symptom of professional immaturity.

    ...

    Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail.
I'd also recommend EWD1305 https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD13xx/EWD130...

    Answers to questions from students of Software Engineering
    [The approximate reconstruction of the questions is left as an exercise to the reader.]

    ...

    No, I'm afraid that computer science has suffered from the popularity of the Internet. It has attracted an increasing —not to say: overwhelming!— number of students with very little scientific inclination and in research it has only strengthened the prevailing (and somewhat vulgar) obsession with speed and capacity.

    Yes, I share your concern: how to program well —though a teachable topic— is hardly taught. The situation is similar to that in mathematics, where the explicit curriculum is confined to mathematical results; how to do mathematics is something the student must absorb by osmosis, so to speak. One reason for preferring symbol-manipulating, calculating arguments is that their design is much better teachable than the design of verbal/pictorial arguments. Large-scale introduction of courses on such calculational methodology, however, would encounter unsurmountable political problems.

Re: The Manuscripts of Edsger W. Dijkstra

#10

Post by 4b11b4 »

I really enjoyed the this one:

Some meditations on Advanced Programming

https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD00xx/EWD32....

As I'm currently in a Functional Programming course in Haskell... This resonated.

I know that we'll always need to write programs which directly interface with memory.

However, when we don't need to do that... Maybe we shouldn't write programs in this style (i.e. imperative). Maybe we shouldn't even use an imperative language (I know, that's a stretch, many languages have incorporated functional aspects and we can utilize them instead of trying to avoid the language entirely).

---

Dijkstra ends EWB 32 with:

"Smoothly we have arrived at the third component of our tool, viz. the language: also the language should be a reliable one. In other words it should assist the programmer as much as possible in the most difficult aspect of his task, viz. to convince himself —and those others who are really interested— that the program he has written down defines indeed the process he wanted to define."

"As my very last remark I should like to stress that the tool as a whole should have still another quality. It is a much more subtle one; whether we appreciate it or not depends much more on our personal taste and education and I shall not even try to define it. The tool should be charming, it should be elegant, it should be worthy of our love. This is no joke, I am terribly serious about this. In this respect the programmer does not differ from any other craftsman: unless he loves his tools it is highly improbable that he will ever create something of superior quality."

At the same time these considerations tell us the greatest virtues a program can show: Elegance and Beauty."

---

Functional languages... help us achieve these aims.

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