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The threats to computing science (Dijkstra circa 1984)
- scott_s 17y agoOh, yikes: "I recently read a series of articles on the Shuttle on-board software and, though President Reagan has generously offered a teacher a free ride, I tell you I am not available." That teacher died in the Challenger disaster. Although, it was famously the result of the O-rings not maintaining their seal, not the software. (Feynman was actually impressed with the software during the inquiry, but perhaps that's because he didn't have the software-eye that Dijkstra did.)
- sb 17y agoRead this and understand where the (justified) fear comes from: http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3522 http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3522 Personally, I am happy that those pieces of source code appear with a big time delay; probably I wouldn't drive a car knowing details of the source code.
- sb 17y agoThis is a classic amongst the EWDs. It contains many brilliant quotes on the state of computing science in that era, shortly before he left the Netherlands for teaching at the University of Texas at Austin. His view of "software engineering" is at least insightful (and sadly true as far as I am concerned) and the thinking that the programming language is our primary obstacle to finding the Elixir and/or the Stone can be found often--given one tries to look closly enough... (The metaphor alone is very well chosen and in the usual witty Dijkstra style; reading is highly recommended!)
- wglb 17y agoIt is particularly interesting to read this essay again after reading Coders at Work in which the serious and respected practitioners of our craft support many of the arguments made here. In particular, one that I have myself been guilty of is that "once the proper way of communicating with the machines had been found, all programming ills would have been cured". This is underscored by the interviews in Coders at Work.