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by edejong 2223 days ago
That quote is misattributed and I also think it is not something Dijkstra would have said. Quite the opposite actually. However, I think this quote from him is much more beautiful:

In their capacity as a tool, computers will be but a ripple on the surface of our culture. In their capacity as intellectual challenge, they are without precedent in the cultural history of mankind.

(Turing award lecture, 1972)

2 comments

He did say it because I heard him say it. The sentence just before was: "Our field should be called 'Computing Science' rather than 'Computer Science.'"
In my language most university courses/majors are actually named like that. Common names: "Ciências da Computação": Computing Science "Engenharia Informática": (Informática is usually translated as computer or computing science, or just computing) CS Engineering Less common: "Ciencias dos Computadores": Computer Science "Engenharia Informática e Ciências dos Computadores": I bet you can translate this one
Dijkstra probably assumed that you would have the programming chops and language knowledge.

As our second best DBA did when I worked at BT - he had worked at NPL and Dijkstra was his boss