[cafard]

I have heard of the cultural difference you refer to--my son worked in the Netherlands for some months. Yet I don't think that is all of it. Is it simple frankness to say that the use of Fortran damages the brain?

I do think that a good deal of the internet--the great unwashed both correspondents refer to--remember Dijkstra the insult comic better than Dijkstra the pioneer of computing. It doesn't improve discourse on the internet, I guess, or worsen it much either. I don't think it just to Dijkstra's reputation, though that is no responsibility of mine.

In his biography of Alexander the Great, Peter Green quotes the Athenian Demades's reproach to Philip:"King Philip," he said, "Fortune has cast you as Agamemnon; but you seem determined to act the part of Thersites."