Dijkstra's objective was to make programming into an intellectually respectable, rigorous branch of mathematics, a motivation he mentions obliquely here. He wa

Dijkstra's objective was to make programming into an intellectually respectable, rigorous branch of mathematics, a motivation he mentions obliquely here. He was, generally speaking, opposed to non-technical programmers and languages aimed at casual audiences, such as BASIC and APL; they were at best irrelevant to his goal and at worst (I suspect, though he never said) threats to its credibility.