How many readers do you really think know where he currently resides? I've been surprised at how many old-school software geniuses are still around. Ex.: Knuth just published Volume 4.
Heck, how many readers of HN know who Dijkstra is?
Yes, including the date on very old articles is sensible.
I started programming in basic the year he died, and then Java the year after. I recall a survey that would put me around the middle, maybe (hopefully) the lower end, of the age group of people that read this site (24).
I'll be blunt - if you don't know who Dijkstra is, you're in the wrong industry. Yes. Seriously.
You might disagree with him, but a programmer NOT KNOWING Dijkstra is the same as being an english major not knowing who Shakespeare is. (Or maybe Chaucer. He's probably the better analog)
You forget the new computer scientists and the people just learning about arrays that find this place sufficiently interesting to read around it.
I'm not one of them, but not everyone is far enough into their CS career to have come across the numerous contributions he has made.
In fact, with the web-development world we're living in, I imagine it's pretty easy to go very far in {php, python, <insert language here that isn't often formally taught>}, and write a ton of code (or at least stitch a great number of libraries together), even ones that use semaphores or some other construct/algorithm he's helped develop, without ever having heard his name.
I would say: "If you don't know who Dijkstra is, you need to read more algorithm books", or "you need to study more history", or "you need to read more academic papers", or "you need to work on harder problems."
Heck, how many readers of HN know who Dijkstra is?
Yes, including the date on very old articles is sensible.