Aihuxl.125
net.general
utzoo!decvax!harpo!ihnss!ihuxl!ignatz
Thu May 6 04:32:54 1982
Dr. Dijkstra speaks...
The following is a "reprint" from an SIGPLAN issue. All appropriate copyrights
are preserved; if Dr. Dijkstra is upset about my entering this on the net, I
would welcome the legal problems just to speak with him. In fact, if he ISN'T
upset, I'd still be tickled to speak with him...with all respects:
(SIGPLAN) Editor's note: This article is reprinted here with the kind permission
of Prof. Dijkstra and Springer-Verlag Publishers. It was originally issued
as Memo EWD 498 and is part of a manuscript for a book, "Selected Writings
on Computing: A Personal Perspective.".
I solicited permission to reprint this memo and have made two changes in the
text. The changes are in square brackets and the following note applies to both:
Here the text is less explicit than the original; at the
editor's request and with the author's consent, the
original phrase has been translated into the local
dialect of SIGPLAN Notices.
Replies to this article will be published in a group in a future
issue. Prof. Dijkstra will be given an opportunity to comment on
replies.
(Submission note: replies should go to SIGPLAN...)
Prof. Dr. Edsger W. Dijkstra
Burroughs Research Fellow
18th June 1975
Plataanstraat 5
5671 AL Nuenen
The Netherlands
Sometimes we discover unpleasant truths. Whenever we do so,
we are in difficulties. Supressing them is scientifically
dishonest, so we *must* tell them, but telling them, however,
will fire back on us. If the truths are sufficiently unpalatable,
our audience is physicaly incapable of accepting them and we will be written
off as totally unrealistic, hopelessly idealistic, dangerously revolutionary,
foolishly gullible or what have you. (Besides that, telling such truths is
a sure way of making oneself unpopular in many circles, and, as such,
it is an act that, in general, is not without personal risks.
Vide Galileo Galilei...)
Computing Science seems to suffer severly from this conflict.
On the whole, it remains silent and tries to escape this conflict
by shiftint its attention. (For instance: with respect to COBOL
you can really do only one of two things: fight the disease or
pretend that it does not exist. Most Computer Science Departments
have opted for the latter easy way out.) But, Brethren,
I ask you: is this honest? Is not our prolonged silence fretting
away Computing Science's intellectual integrity? Are we
decent by remaining silent? If not, how do we speak up?
To give you some idea of the scope of the problem, I have listed
a number of such truths. (Nearly all computing scientists I know
will agree without hesitation to nearly all of them.
Yet we allow the world to behave as if we did not know them....)
* * :
Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied
mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure
mathematicians.
The easiest machine applications are the technical/scientific
computations.
The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on
our thinking habits, and, therfore, on our thinking abilities.
FORTRAN, "the infantile disorder", by now nearly 20 years old,
is hoplessly inadequate for whatever computer application you
have in mind today; it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too
expensive to use.
PL/I --"the fatal disease"-- belongs more to the problem set
than to the solution set.
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to
students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential
programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore,
be regarded as a criminal offense.
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the
language of the future for the programming techniques of the
past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.
The problems of business administration in general and data
base management in particular are much too difficult for people
that think in [programmerese], compounded with sloppy English.
About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil
with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten
blunt axes instead.
Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery
of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.
Many companies that have made themselves dependent on [the
equipment of a certain major manufacturer](and in doing so have
sold their soul to the devil) will collapse under the sheer weight
of the unmastered complexity of their data processing systems.
We can found no scientific discipline, nor a healthy profession,
on the technical mistakes of the Department of Defense and,
mainly, one computer manufacturer.
The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing
systems is a symptom of professional immaturity.
By claiming that they can contribute to software engineering,
the soft scientists make themselves even more ridiculous. (Not
less dangerous, alas!) In spite of its name, software engineering
requires (cruelly) hard science for its support.
In the good old days physists repeated each other's experiments,
just to be sure. Today they stick to FORTRAN, so that they
can share each other's programs, bugs included.
Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically
doomed to fail.
* * *
Isn't this list enough to make us uncomfortable? What are we going to do?
Return to the order of the day, presumably...
Prof. Dr. Edsger W. Dijkstra
Burroughs Research Fellow
PS. If the conjecture "You would rather that I had not disturbed you
by sending you this." is correct, you may add it to the list of
uncomfortable truths.
EWD
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I think this speaks for itself,
even for being 7 years old...
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