
E.W.Dijkstra Archive: The Humble Programmer (EWD 340) - adambyrtek
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD340.html
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chrisaycock
I've always loved the title of that essay, since Dijkstra wasn't known for
being humble.

An example from

[http://www.i-programmer.info/history/people/144-dijkstra.htm...](http://www.i-programmer.info/history/people/144-dijkstra.html?start=1)

He was legendary for not sitting quietly in lecturers and talks by others.
Instead he would grow increasingly agitated until an outburst could not be
contained any longer. David Gries recalled a time when he was lecturing with
Dijkstra in the audience when he read "x=a" as "x equals a". This is of course
a short hand for "assign a to x" and not a statement that x really is
logically equal to a. From the back of the room Dijkstra shouted "becomes" and
the room fell silent.

~~~
jemfinch
Is pedantry really opposed to humility?

I know of Alan Kay's witty invective ("Arrogance in Computer Science is
measured in nano-Dijkstras") but having read much of Dijkstra I'm not
convinced that he was really _arrogant_ so much as very insistent that
programmers recognize their own limitations.

"As a slow-witted human being I have a very small head and I had better learn
to live with it and to respect my limitations and give them full credit,
rather than try to ignore them, for the latter vain effort will be punished by
failure."

