I just received the following announcement: 
Grateful for most that has befallen him, has peacefully passed away,
   Edsger Wybe Dijkstra,
our husband and father.
 
We hold him very dear.

The cremation will take place on

Saterday, August 10th, 12:30 PM at
Somerenseweg 120
Heeze
the Netherlands
 
Maria C. Dijkstra Debets
Marcus J. Dijkstra
Femke E. Dijkstra
Rutger M. Dijkstra
While he would have hated Perl, we wouldn't have archieved as much if it weren't for brilliant minds like Dijkstra's.

Abigail

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: RIP: Edsger Wybe Dijkstra
by greenFox (Vicar) on Aug 08, 2002 at 08:46 UTC

    "While he would have hated Perl"

    I can understand why, quoting from LWN for August 8, 2002

    "The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly lmited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague."- Edsger W. Dijkstra

    Perl is my clever programming trick :-)

    Judging by some of the other quotes on the page (esp. the COBOL one) I think I would have liked him. Heres to you Edsger.

    --
    Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is. -Margaret Mitchell

[reply]
      Larry is a perl God EWD is a^Wthe computer science God - a much bigger realm :-)

      I obtained a copy of 'A Discipline of Programing' some years ago - was out of print so I payed well over the odds for it. I have to say that unlike almost every other CS book I have read I keep going back to it again and again for inspiration and ideas.

      It marries the discipline of programming with the art. It makes programming into a science and shows the full beauty of the soliving a problem. It covered non-deterministic systems proving at a time when ND systems were considered an art form and not a science.

      A book written by someone decades ahead of his time - a programming god if not (IMHO) the programming^WCS god.

      Jacqui

      p.s. Everyone should have a copy of this book.
      Mine was loaned to a member of staff who took it when he left so I will be ordering two more copies RSN. One for me and one for work to waft under junior staffs noses.

[reply]
Re: RIP: Edsger Wybe Dijkstra
by jmcnamara (Monsignor) on Aug 08, 2002 at 09:08 UTC

    While he would have hated Perl

    And Perl Golf in particular: On Golf.

    The essay in question is Dijkstra's "The Humble Programmer".

    --
    John.

[reply]

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