RIP, Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

Post #48,625 by Yendor 8/7/02 10:21:57 PM Reply	RIP, Edsger Wybe Dijkstra 1930-2002 [link\|http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/UTCS/notices/dijkstra/ewdobit.html\|Obituary] I attended UT-Austin for four years. Studied computer science, even. He was well-known, but our paths never crossed. Once upon a time, you could "finger dijkstra@cs.utexas.edu" and you'd be greeted with the plan of (paraphrased) "Professor Dijkstra does not respond to email." And now, one final time: [mike@sixofone ~]$ finger dijkstra@cs.utexas.edu [cs.utexas.edu: phingerd responds at Wed Aug 7 21:18:23 2002] Last login: never logged in Recent sessions: dijkstra toque:ttyp3 Jun 12 13:20 - 13:52 (00:32) dijkstra toque:ttyp2 Jun 12 14:13 - 14:21 (00:08) dijkstra toque:ttyp0 Aug 27 21:06 - 21:10 (00:04) dijkstra im4u2:3 May 8 05:56 - 06:12 (00:16) dijkstra viper:0 Jul 10 13:39 - 13:45 (00:06) Name: Edsger W. Dijkstra Org: Computer Sciences, TAY 2.124, UT Austin, Austin TX 78712-1188 Office: Office Ph#: Home Ph#: Birthday: Login: dijkstra Sponsor: Group: prof Type: Shell: /bin/csh Expires: Dec 31, 9999 Server: /v/filer1a/v0q050/dijkst Quota: prof-default Mailbox: Aliased to <ewdkstra@xs4all.nl> [PLAN] Professor Dijkstra reads email addressed to <dijkstra@cs.utexas.edu>. -YendorMike What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about? - Jimmy Buffett, June 20, 2002, Tinley Park
Post #48,629 by ben_tilly 8/7/02 10:37:00 PM Reply	He will be missed The announcement in [link\|http://lwn.net/Articles/6954/\|another place]. Someone else posted a number of favorite comments of his, one of which I like enough that I am switching my .sig to that right now. For those who don't understand the comment, go read [link\|http://www.acm.org/classics/oct95/\|Go To Considered Harmful] and tell us what it has to do with computers... Cheers, Ben Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. -- Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (1930-2002)
Post #48,639 by a6l6e6x 8/7/02 11:26:03 PM Reply	Edsger Dijkstra - a humble giant of Computer Science. Alex "Television: chewing gum for the eyes." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
Post #48,660 by jb4 8/8/02 9:08:01 AM Reply	Wasn't he the one who quipped... "BASIC isn't a language, it's a disease"? Still true today (even more so than when originally spoken)! jb4 "I remember Harry S. Truman's sign on his desk. 'The buck stops here.' Strange how those words, while still true, mean something completely different today." -- Brandioch
Post #48,664 by jb4 8/8/02 9:35:42 AM Reply	OK here's what I found so far: The quip I found was from One of his papers (EWD 287) which can be found [link\|http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/indexBibTeX.html\|through the BibTeX index of his papers at UT-Austin] (Note: These papers are generally in PDF format, but don't try to use them; they are basically digital images of photocopies of his original papers, which were generally typed on a manual typewriter -- some with words overstruck with X's to "eease" them...how quaint!) The quote, from [link\|http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD287.PDF\|this paper] is: "If FORTRAN has been called an infantile disorder, PL/I must be classified as a fatal disease." (Also not that he numbers his pages starting from 0...a true visionary in his field...) jb4 "I remember Harry S. Truman's sign on his desk. 'The buck stops here.' Strange how those words, while still true, mean something completely different today." -- Brandioch
Post #48,680 by Andrew Grygus 8/8/02 11:10:37 AM Reply	No, the quote was: "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students hat have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as programmers they are mentally mutilated beyone hope of regeneration." Also "FORTRAN: 'The infantile disorder,' by now 20 years old is hoplessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and to expensive to use." "PL/I - 'the fatal disease' - belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set." "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." "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." Sorry, no links, it's all from my paper files, circia 1984. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #48,688 by ChrisR 8/8/02 11:33:26 AM Reply	A link for the quotes... ...can be found at [link\|http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html\|How do we tell truths that might hurt?].
Post #48,691 by jb4 8/8/02 12:46:03 PM Reply	Thanks! I believe he's given me a new sig! jb4 "About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. " -- Edsger W.Dijkstra (1930 - 2002) (I wish more managers knew that...)
Post #48,931 by wharris2 8/10/02 1:33:59 PM Reply	Ten blunt axes You get a good lathe, you can sharpen anything no matter how blunt the instrument is. I hope that comment was taken out of context. Visual Basic is good for many things, no matter if Basic numbs the brain. The lawyers would mostly rather be what they are than get out of the way even if the cost was Hammerfall. - Jerry Pournelle
Post #48,943 by ChrisR 8/10/02 3:52:23 PM Reply	VB is not a programming language... ...it is a product. As a product, it is ok. As a programming language it sucks - as attested to the fact that it is undergoing some major revamping in it's latest incarnation. Note that the quote is from 1975, way before VB existed, so it was not an opinion about VB. I'd guess though that he would say that it was applicable to VB as well.
Post #48,947 by orion 8/10/02 4:55:05 PM Reply	VB sucks, but the PHBs love it and they want us to program in it, or else! None of that wimpy Java or C++, just pure Visual BASIC. *[link\|http://games.speakeasy.net/data/files/khan.jpg\|"Khan!!!" -Kirk]*
Post #48,957 by ChrisR 8/10/02 6:33:55 PM Reply	Best of the worst It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to write UI intensive applications (i.e. front ends), then Visual C++ is the worst abomination ever foisted upon the programming world. Java Swing is an improvement but it still has a lot to be desired (the tools are flakey). For such UI tasks, VB, Delphi and Python are much more productive environments, and I do not blame management for spurning Java and C++ in that application space - a space which, I might add, occupies a significant portion of IT. If I was working in the embedded space, C++ is a much better fit than either Java or VB, but I'd probably still avoid Visual C++ as it has way too much overhead in the libraries and is processor specific. Most likely I'd use GCC in my efforts. (Might even use Objective-C if I was of a real mind to exploit objects). When it comes to enterprise level applications (i.e. the backend), then Java scores well with J2EE. Lots of libraries to simplify things, as well as good support from most of the backend and middleware products. This is also a significant portion of IT development, especially given that it is much easier to develop web applications from the backend perspective and leave the UI chores to the browser. Anyhow, I think it a mistake to think of Java and C++ as being competitive with Visual Basic. They are not. They are well suited for some applications, but are a dog in the places where VB makes sense. (Delphi is quite competitive in features and ease of use with the VB application space). Dissin' VB as a pathetic programming language may be common but Java and C++ do not come close to filling the void. They have their own set of problems and are not geared towards UI apps.
Post #48,969 by wharris2 8/10/02 10:54:01 PM Reply	A cogent commentary. The lawyers would mostly rather be what they are than get out of the way even if the cost was Hammerfall. - Jerry Pournelle
Post #48,993 by tuberculosis 8/11/02 1:48:41 PM Reply	RE Objective C Its environment (what apple calls cocoa) is far and away the best UI development environment of the bunch you mentioned. Of course its Apple specific, but then VB is MS specific so I thought I could chime in. I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
Post #49,010 by tonytib 8/11/02 5:32:54 PM Reply	Yeah, but it won't work for embedded
Post #49,014 by CRConrad 8/11/02 6:02:55 PM Reply	Have you actually tried Delphi, so you can compare fairly? Todd B writes [under the heading RE Objective C]: Its environment (what apple calls cocoa) is far and away the best UI development environment of the bunch you mentioned. I haven't tried Objective C, so I can't... But unless you've really given Delphi a chance, how are we supposed to be able to take your word for that? Christian R. Conrad Microsoft is a true reflection of Bill Gates' personality - the sleaziest, most unethical, ugliest little rat's ass the world has seen unto this time. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=42971\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #49,035 by tuberculosis 8/12/02 3:07:25 AM Reply	My Delphi Experience Is admittedly limited to having an office mate who was gaga for it and gave me several forced demos. At the superficial level it sure seemed like a 4GL kind of thing that generated code. I could be wrong. Also, I have a little experience with Object Pascal from MacApp days. Its still an "emulated" OO language in the spirit of C++ and Java rather than a dynamic one in the spirit of Smalltalk and ObjectiveC. Which means I don't much care for it on a conceptual level. My third bias against it is that it runs on PCs - something I've never cared to work on. Unix servers are pretty much the only place I ply my trade. I've heard Delphi now works on Linux? But that would reqire me to buy a PC and I have no use for PCs. I'm quite happy with OSX. Why I think Cocoa is the coolest thing: The NextStep UI Builder (called InterfaceBuilder or IB) is radical in what it does. You actually visually assemble objects together - they don't have to be UI objects either. Once you create an assembly (this thingy connects to that doodad via this property and sends this message on getting this event....) it serializes the set of objects into a file (called a nib file for the extension used). Usually this is a window with widgets and your home-made controller class and maybe some model objects. Doesn't have to be though. So when you want a new instance of that window (or other kind of assembly), you reinflate the nib again. The nib acts as a sort of template. This means you don't subclass nearly as much in Cocoa programming (hardly ever actually). Instead, you just assemble stuff. This is kind of what Java beans wanted to do with its serialization and stuff, but Sun messed it up and the implementors couldn't get their head around real serialization so they all punted and did code generation. I also think they sort of had to because of Java's static binding nature. I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
Post #59,409 by CRConrad 10/25/02 11:31:43 AM Reply	Delphi evangelism, continued... (new thread) Created as new thread #59408 titled [link\|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=59408\|Delphi evangelism, continued...] Christian R. Conrad Microsoft is a true reflection of Bill Gates' personality - the sleaziest, most unethical, ugliest little rat's ass the world has seen unto this time. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=42971\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #49,086 by jb4 8/12/02 2:39:46 PM 8/12/02 2:42:05 PM Reply	Several counterpoints Most likely I'd use GCC in my efforts. I'm currently using gcc in an embeded application (w/ QNX as the OS). If gcc is supposed to be some kind of shining star for what the Open Source "community" can produce, they should be ashamed and embarrased. The ANSI C++ statnadard has been a standard for 5 years, for chrissakes, and has been a stable proposed standard for quite a bit longer. gcc's ANSI compliance is a fucking joke; Visual C pus pus has better compliance (and you KNOW how I feel about Visual C pus pus!). Dissin' VB as a pathetic programming language may be common but Java and C++ do not come close to filling the void. They have their own set of problems and are not geared towards UI apps. You're confusing the language with the support libraries. Visual C pus pus uses the godforsaken POS ephemistically referred to as MFC. MFC is basically useless for just about anything (except marketing, and how much marketing is written in C++, anyway?). Now let's try a real library; for example, Borland's C++ Builder's VCL (the same library used by Delphi). Developing UI-intensive apps in C++ Builder is a breeze, and is even easier that developing the corresponding app in Visual Bullshit (mostly because it's backed by a real language.) So C++, coupled with a class library tailored to the job (and devoid of Micros~1 bullshit), is more than capable of "filling the void". jb4 "About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. " -- Edsger W.Dijkstra (1930 - 2002) (I wish more managers knew that...) Edited by jb4 Aug. 12, 2002, 02:42:05 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #49,232 by Arkadiy 8/13/02 2:55:46 PM Reply	What version of gcc are you using? 3.0.x is rather compliant. It's better than 6.0
Post #49,256 by jb4 8/13/02 6:41:25 PM Reply	Re: What version of gcc are you using? 2.95.2 Been told (albeit by the QNX people) that 3.0 is "not quite stable" yet. Neither are in Borland country WRT compliance... jb4 "About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. " -- Edsger W.Dijkstra (1930 - 2002) (I wish more managers knew that...)
Post #49,336 by Arkadiy 8/14/02 10:22:14 AM Reply	Re: What version of gcc are you using? 2.95 was indeed not terribly compliant (shameful, if you ask me). We moved to 3.0, currently at 3.0.4 . I was the last one to move, after discovering that 64 bit integers and template types don't mix in 2.95. It seems to be stable on Linux, Solaris, Aix and HPUX (3.0.1 was not, optimizer bugs on HPUX). But QNX? I have no idea. Check it out anyway - you're switching to it eventually, aren't you?
Post #49,450 by jb4 8/15/02 9:33:13 AM Reply	I'd rather switch than... I dunno. The port of gcc to QNX is in the hands of QNX themselves; the "community" does not do the port. Therefore, QNX users are sort of at the mercy of QNX, who, besides having no true marketing plan, are notably myopic with regards to C++ in general. Last I heard, their new, oh-so-kewl upgrade, which contains a (JAVA-based) IDE, is to use 2.95.3. Switching? If I had my way, I'd switch to (embedded) Linux, and use Kylix. (But when do I ever get my way? :-( ) jb4 "About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. " -- Edsger W.Dijkstra (1930 - 2002) (I wish more managers knew that...)
Post #48,742 by ben_tilly 8/8/02 10:05:09 PM Reply	A tip on links, and a good additional one Today if you remember a good quote, you can go to google, enter it with double-quotes around it, and you usually will come up with a pretty good reference to give out. As for links, my favorite that I have seen today is [link\|http://www.cbi.umn.edu/collections/inv/burros/ewd594.htm\|this parable]. :-) Cheers, Ben Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. -- Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (1930-2002)
Post #48,762 by Andrew Grygus 8/8/02 11:31:29 PM Reply	But, that is entirely unneccessary . . . . someone always does that for me. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #48,789 by drewk 8/9/02 8:46:08 AM Reply	Re: the parable Programmers, as a rule, are delighted by it, and managers, invariably, get more and more annoyed as the story progresses; true mathematicians, however, fail to see the point. And people who have worked from someone else's specs, without the opportunity to participate in creating the spec, just once too often ... are completely unsurprised. I mean come on, if you're going to remove an amenity you have to consider the impact it will have on the customers. Then you calculate lost business by simply sucking up the complaints vs. money saved. Then you consider ways to mitigate the complaints and what they would cost. (Ok, self[1], stop ranting now. It's just a story. [pant pant ... whhhhhhhhhhhhoooooooooo]) [1] Not you, Self. === Microsoft offers them the one thing most business people will pay any price for - the ability to say "we had no choice - everyone's doing it that way." -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=38978\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #48,912 by static 8/10/02 3:33:23 AM Reply	Yes, that was it. I saw it quite a few years ago up on someone's cubicle wall along with the article "GoTo considered harmful". I also remember the COBOL one from somewhere. But I must have turned out okay: my first computer language was BASIC. On a home computer, no less! :-) Wade. "Ah. One of the difficult questions."
Post #48,782 by tuberculosis 8/9/02 3:39:50 AM Reply	The one I always remember It was spit out by the fortune program at college every now and then was: "Everybody is somebody else's weirdo." - Dykstra Which is an extremely Buddha like thing to say. I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
Post #48,935 by andread 8/10/02 2:25:14 PM Reply	Dime store Platonism very few scientists are also philosophers some of the quotes everyone seems to marvel over are based on some half-baked ideas Plato posited the existence of forms which were the fully realized versions of things that we grasp only dimly (like the Form of the Good) We can't experience the forms directly so we just struggle on in the 'dark' this does not mean that anything that does not measure up to the world of forms is bad although that is the general drift of the pithy remarks linked in this thread I don't know about the computer science value of the work but its level of philosophical insight is low A Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM Reggae, African and Caribbean Music [link\|http://wxxe.org\|Tune In]

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