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.
Many of you are wrongly (and sarcastically) making the point that since XFree86 is part of many distributions then instead of prepending GNU alone, you should also prepend XFree86.
You are missing the point here. XFree86 is packaged independently in many GNU/Linux distributions, but it is not an inherent part of the system that you call Linux.
Linux the kernel is minimally distributed with either GNU components or GNU add-ons. Further, it requires GNU packages in order for it to work. This is the distribution that should be called GNU/Linux.
Try not to confuse yourselves, will you?
Slashdot Mirror
The original news release, with mpeg videos, is available from the National Science Foundation website. Enjoy.
True Slashdotter alright! ;)
Also the Microsoft-like problems that he faces with IBM. His disdain is clearly shown by labelling IBM the devil!
Dijkstra - trolling since 1975 ;)
You are missing the point here. XFree86 is packaged independently in many GNU/Linux distributions, but it is not an inherent part of the system that you call Linux.
Linux the kernel is minimally distributed with either GNU components or GNU add-ons. Further, it requires GNU packages in order for it to work. This is the distribution that should be called GNU/Linux. Try not to confuse yourselves, will you?