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Edsger Wybe Dijkstra: 1930-2002
Order writes "Edsger Wybe Dijkstra, one of the founding fathers of computer science and the author of the famous "Go To Considered Harmful", has died on Aug. 6, 2002 after a long struggle with cancer."
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Edsger Wybe Dijkstra sounds middle-eastern.
Only if you're a retard.
I LOVE AMERICAN LOGIC!
I love the anti-American bigotry of Europeans who go on and on about how much more "civilized" than Americans they are, yet can't seem to get through ten years without genocide breaking out somewhere on their savage pseudo-continent.
Dijkstra was very good at producing quotable remarks; in addition to his comment about computers, thought, submarines, and swimming (RTFA), he made the following remark about computer science:
"Computer science is as much about computers as astronomy is about telescopes."
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
In today's computer world, dominated more by marketing folks more than the technicians, I wonder how many people have heard of this man. It is sad that in the last decade of so, CEOs like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have gained so much public recognition while people Dijkstra languish in relative anonymity.
A few weeks ago, there was a post in /. about Knuth. I was surprised to see many ask who he was!
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For those of us who have chosen the fields of computer science & engineering as our professions, this is a time to reflect and realize just how lucky we are.
We're getting in on the ground floor. The folks who were there in the VERY BEGINNING of our field are still around to teach us something. We need to remember just how privileged we are to have these fantastic people with us to "pass the torch" so to speak.
Look at how far the medical field has come in its history. Or chemistry. Or physics. And these are just scientific professions.
Think about other things, like teaching or agriculture.
We're the next group to advance CS/E. We've got to adopt these folks as our mentors and learn all we can from them.
Not just _how_ their stuff works, but _why_ they did it. Fundamental practices 30 years ago are as fundamental today as they were then.
"Those who fail to learn from their past tend to repeat it."
RIP, Mr. Dijkstra. And thanks for being such a great mentor.
--NBVB
His writings on semaphores gave me the key thoughts on scheduling real time OS's some 30 plus years ago and I went on to create and use those RTOS's in a variety of micro and mini computers over the years on a lot of consulting jobs. Most of the time, I neglected to tell management just how I did things, and the results were some amazing systems way back then. He nudged me to realize that "Simplicity is Elegance" when it comes to software design, which is really a matter of efficient resource management. If you can understand your own designs, they might even work. He will be missed.
This man contributed many great ideas to our field. The sad thing is how many programmers are still in ignorance of them, even now. You did great things, Mr. Dijkstra, and will be sorely missed. I just hope we're still allowed to have generic computing devices in ten years' time, so we can continue to refine and develop the revolutionary ideas you left us with.
Indeed. He was a most amazing man in that he was clearly a brilliant theoretician, but he had a keen interest in solving theoretical problems that were of *practical* value (who would've thought there were so many neat mathematical problems in OS design?).
The reason that the bulk of the comments here revolve around the whole GOTO thing is because, quite frankly, that is the only one of Diijkstra's contributions that the bulk of Slashdotters are capable of understanding and appreciating.
Most of these posts are quite equivalent to, upon hearing of the passing of Ghandi, saying "Gee, I heard that guy could go a few days without food".
But, to paraphrase the great man himself: in Computer Science most folks miss the science for the telescope. Some things never change.
Rest in peace Professor Diijkstra.
I understand that this could be construed as funny, but it strikes me as rather distasteful.
Honestly, I think the biggest crisis in software development is the "function follows form" problem. People are choosing implementation parameters before the problem is even designed!
:) These are just my personal feelings about software development today ........
;)
It's the "I don't know what it is we're going to do exactly, but I know it'll be done in Java" problem.
The second-biggest crisis in software development today is the bloat problem, IMO. The fact that hardware speeds & memory capacities are following Moore's Law is no reason for us to bloat the code so badly.
Re-writing things that used to function just fine in a new paradigm just for the sake of rewriting it is asinine!
The concept of "Webifying" everything is just silly. Whoever thinks that stateful tasks should be done with a stateless protocol (HTTP) is insane!
Anyway, enough ranting.
And you are completely correct. We need to learn not only the lessons of our mentors, but their mistakes too. Mistakes like C shouldn't ever be repeated...
Oh, did I just say that?
Sorry, I'm letting my personal feelings out again
--NBVB
Moderators: This is one of those posts where I say screw karma. Mod me to redundant hell if you wish, it just doesn't matter.
This is an extremely sad day for computer science. There is hardly a field in CS that Dijkstra's work didn't touch. His work can be seen everywhere we use computers.
Personally, this is an extremely sad day for me as well. Although I never met the man or saw him speak (now one of my greatest regrets), being in college, he's my equivalent of a Joe DiMaggio or a Ted Williams. This man was a hero and an inspiration to me.
Sometimes it really pisses me off that we show such public sorrow for sports figures who pass away like Ted Williams who for the most part didn't do a damn thing to really and truly improve our lives (granted Ted Williams was a marine and fighter pilot but that's not why most people were mourning him). This man greatly and directly contributed to a vast improvement of our quality of life as human beings. His obituary will be a foot note and page Z-42 of the NY Times and Washington Post but when celebrities die, they're front and center on page 1. It makes me sick.
That's my 2 cents and I'm not giving any damn change. >:o
This is speculation, but I would guess that he's speaking of the first couple chapters of "A Discipline of Programming".
Dijkstra's mindset is not for everyone. It's the mindset of a computer scientist who wants to have confidence in his code, confidence that does not come from ego (I am aswome, therefor my code never stinks).
I think the ugly hack has it's place. After all, breaking a window is usualy a bad way to accomplish something, but if the context is you're trapped in a burning house, it's more likely a good move. Bodgeing it out has a similar context, but 99% of the people who don't value clean, well considered code are not in that context. And of the 1% who are, I would bet many of them are in that burning house because someone before them didn't value clean and well considered code.
this is the slashdot crowd. The same one that gets all crazy about MS or DRM or RMS. The rabble cannot "clean up" for this important post. Be kinder.
There is an old zen saying:
Show a swordsman your sword
Show a poet your poem.
Slashdot is just slashdot.
It is sad that in the last decade of so, CEOs like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have gained so much public recognition while people Dijkstra languish in relative anonymity.
and in his time, whom do you think was more famous, Newton or his King/Queen ? Lagrange or whatever Louie ruled then ?
True metal survives the acid test of time. The ornamentations, the hype-sellers, the gates'es and Bezos'es, will be forgotten by everyone (except historians) by the next century.
Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm and other works will be remembered in centuries to come.
Working for necessity's mother.