The first time I understood a formal proof was with Dijkstra: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd13xx/EWD1311.PDF http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd13xx/EWD1311.P

The first time I understood a formal proof was with Dijkstra: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd13xx/EWD1311.PDF http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd13xx/EWD1311.PDF He is an exceptionally sharp thinker who is able to communicate his thought process with clarity. Even if you don't follow the math you understand how certain proofs can be abstracted from proofs made earlier. I think you are correct, Dijkstra was exceptionally interested in formal verification to the point where he wasn't willing to envision a computing world that was not formally verified. When he said that programming is more difficult to mathematics he was probably envisioning the problems of formal logic with increasingly sophisticated programming structures.