Dijkstra's Manuscripts Available Online

Bodrius writes "Salon has a short but interesting article called GOTO considered joyful, about E. W. Dijkstra's manuscripts, as published by the University of Texas, and their bloggish nature. I'm not sure if the blog analogy is that accurate, but the articles are a must read for computer scientists and geeks in general." (Annoying but free click-through system for non-subscribers.)

Comments

Compelling?

[mao che minh]

That was a mighty gracious tribute to a mere blog. I understand that it is a very old blog, but honestly, who really cares? It's poorly selected stories like these that are dragging Salon down. I'll never pay for a website that bothers to publish such boring material.

Oh wait......*

Re:Full Text (Subscribers Only Article)

[mirko]

This can't be : it was supposed to be manuscript, not typed !? :)

GOTO is DYING

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact : GOTO is dying

It is official; Salon.com confirms: GOTO is dying One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered GOTO community when IDC confirmed that GOTO market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Salon.com survey which plainly states that GOTO has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. GOTO is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Bjourne Stroustrop to predict GOTO's future. The hand writing is on the wall: GOTO faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for GOTO because GOTO is dying. Things are looking very bad for GOTO. As many of us are already aware, GOTO continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

GOSUB is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time GOSUB developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: GOSUB is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

JMP leader Theo De Raadt states that there are 7000 users of JMP. How many users of BRANCH are there? Let's see. The number of JMP versus BRANCH posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 BRANCH users. RETURN posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of BRANCH posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of RETURN. A recent article put GOSUB at about 80 percent of the GOTO market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 GOSUB users. This is consistent with the number of GOSUB Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of QBASIC, abysmal sales and so on, GOSUB went out of business and was taken over by VISUAL BASIC.NET who sell another troubled OS. Now VISUAL BASIC.NET is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that GOTO has steadily declined in market share. GOTO is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If GOTO is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. GOTO continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, GOTO is dead.

Fact: GOTO is dying

Re:Can someone shed more light on his misc. info?

[utahjazz]

Why did he use pens and not electronic formats? For a CS person that surprises me.

One of my profs said he was giving a speach at Dijkstra's school. He wanted to make sure Dijkstra didn't attend (apperently Dijkstra was an asshole), so he sent out the announcement via email only. This ensured that Dijkstra would never get the announcement, as he did have a computer.

I'm not sure if the blog analogy is that accurate,

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not accurate, because that would make the material self-important, tedious, badly written nonsense.

Wife swapping???

[tvm662]

There is some saucy stuff in there that he's written about wife swapping and you thought CS was dull.

Tom.

Re:Wife swapping???

[notque]

There is some saucy stuff in there that he's written about wife swapping and you thought CS was dull.

Now all we need is a p2p program for that, and we're set.

Slashdotters descended from Dijkstra

[loonix_gangsta]

Here's proof that Slashdotters are decended from Dijksta. Here's some quotes from document EWD498 "How do we tell truths that might hurt?". Note the problems that he faced in 1975 are similar to what we have today!

FORTRAN -- "the infantile disorder" --, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.

PL/I -- "the fatal disease"-- belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.

It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.

The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence.

APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation
of coding bums.

Also the Microsoft-like problems that he faces with IBM. His disdain is clearly shown by labelling IBM the devil!

....

Many companies that have made themselves dependent on IBM-equipment (and in doing so have sold their soul to the devil) will collapse under the sheer weight of the unmastered complexity of their data processing systems.

We can found no scientific discipline, nor a healthy profession on the technical mistakes of the Department of Defences and, mainly, one computer manufacturer.

....

18th June 1975

Dijkstra - trolling since 1975 ;)

Re:Can someone shed more light on his misc. info?

[danguyf]

I am befuddled that one could consistently spell Dijkstra correctly and yet err in spelling 'speech'.

aper�u

[mausmalone]

(don't miss EWD 666: "A problem solved in my head," which contains the endearing aperçu: "Goldbach's Conjecture -- I had never thought that I would ever use that!")

The Fish says aperçu is a french word that means "outline." Stupid fucking Salon elitist fucktards.

I'm writing obscure french words in an english-language article, thereby ignoring the point of writing it in the first place! I exude a certain je ne sais quoi you cour de merd bourgoise can't approach!

Re:aper�u

[shoor]

I'd heard the word schadenfreude, and maybe even seen a definition. But I didn't understand what it meant really until I saw the Simpson's episode where Flanders opens the Leftorium.

Re:aper�u

[bobbozzo]

An english I had in college described it as the feeling you get when the person who passed you and cut you off gets pulled over for speeding. :P

Re:aper�u

[dr.robotnik]

I find it particularly ironic the way the article writer feels the need to use a french word in an english passage, just after quoting the following from Djikstra:

"I have learned to be very suspicious of ideas I cannot express well in both Dutch and English," he noted, late in life. "As nice as it is to have the union at one's disposal, it is wise to confine oneself to the intersection."

lol :)