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> Calling this narcissism does everyone a significant disservice. It’s not even really narcissism. Here’s the original paper describing what is now called Dij

> Calling this narcissism does everyone a significant disservice. It’s not even really narcissism. Here’s the original paper describing what is now called Dijkstra’s Algorithm: http://www-m3.ma.tum.de/foswiki/pub/MN0506/WebHome/dijkstra.pdf http://www-m3.ma.tum.de/foswiki/pub/MN0506/WebHome/dijkstra.... Note that the algorithm isn’t called that anywhere in the paper. In fact, it’s not even named. When other people want to discuss that work, they need to call it something, and some natural solutions are “an algorithm proposed by Dijkstra” and, subsequently, “Dijkstra’s Algorithm”, as you can see in this contemporary paper. https://www.ams.org/journals/qam/1970-27-04/S0033-569X-1970-0253822-7/S0033-569X-1970-0253822-7.pdf https://www.ams.org/journals/qam/1970-27-04/S0033-569X-1970-...) As that second paper shows, you can’t really call it “the Shortest Path Algorithm” because others were developing other approaches for similar problems. “Shortest Path, Assuming All Edge Weights are Non-Negative and You Can Afford to Search Blindly Without a Heuristic, Algorithm” doesn’t really roll off the tongue either.

rrobukef 6y ago
It is also introduced as Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm if the text is expected to be read outside the domain such as in textbooks.
- mattkrause 6y ago
  Sure, but a) It'd need to be called that by Dijkstra himself to be even arguably narcissistic and b) The qualifier "Dijsktra's" is important because there are other algorithms for finding a shortest path (Bellman-Ford, Floyd-Warshall, A*), with different trade-offs (Bellman-Ford is slower, but can handle negative weights; Floyd-Warshall gets you all pairs and may be better when the graph is dense). Accordingly, I think the grandparent's suggestion of purely descriptive names isn't feasible.
Grustaf 6y ago
This is true, concepts aren’t usually named by the person inventing them. But it’s mind boggling that someone could consider it unfair to give the giants that created mathematics and laid the groundwork for physics and modern technology their due.

rrobukef 6y ago

It is also introduced as Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm if the text is expected to be read outside the domain such as in textbooks.

mattkrause 6y ago
Sure, but a) It'd need to be called that by Dijkstra himself to be even arguably narcissistic and b) The qualifier "Dijsktra's" is important because there are other algorithms for finding a shortest path (Bellman-Ford, Floyd-Warshall, A*), with different trade-offs (Bellman-Ford is slower, but can handle negative weights; Floyd-Warshall gets you all pairs and may be better when the graph is dense). Accordingly, I think the grandparent's suggestion of purely descriptive names isn't feasible.

Grustaf 6y ago

This is true, concepts aren’t usually named by the person inventing them. But it’s mind boggling that someone could consider it unfair to give the giants that created mathematics and laid the groundwork for physics and modern technology their due.