What Edsger W. Dijkstra thinks about design

@edsger-dijkstra · 4 positions · 0 changes of mind

Dutch computer scientist (1930 to 2002); received the Turing Award in 1972; held the Schlumberger Centennial Chair in computer science at the University of Texas at Austin from 1984 to 1999; wrote a numbered series of manuscripts known as the EWDs.

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1 dated position, 1999, in their own words. Our reading of what Edsger W. Dijkstra has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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1. 1 Mar 1999

   Our readingA design has to be kept simple for reliability and intellectual control, but nobody yet knows how to reach simplicity systematically.

   simplicity

   Their wordswe know that for the sake of reliability and intellectual control we have to keep the design simple and disentangled, and in individual cases we have been remarkably successful, but we do not know how to reach simplicity in a systematic manner.

   ↗Computing Science: Achievements and Challenges (EWD1284)cs.utexas.edu 2nd of 2 in this piece