What Edsger W. Dijkstra thinks about simplicity
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.
Everything they publish, on ppll ↗
Edsger W. Dijkstra did not write this page.
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2 dated positions, 1984 to 1999, in their own words. Our reading of what Edsger W. Dijkstra has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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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
- 15 years earlier
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Our readingSimplicity takes hard work to achieve and education to appreciate, and complexity sells better.
Their wordsSimplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.
↗On the nature of Computing Science (EWD896)cs.utexas.edu 1st of 2 in this piece