[goto11]

Half of his clever quotes are completely bonkers though and have been disproven by history. How many of you are proving your programs correct before entering them into the computer? Because that is the only correct way to program. And remember he disparaged Margaret Hamiltons software methodology. Sure, she helped put a man on the moon, but apparently she did it the wrong way.

I suspect geeks like Dijkstra because he is "edgy" more than because he is correct.

Also, Object-Oriented programming was actually invented in Norway, even though Alan Kay of Smalltalk fame tried to take credit.

He was right about GOTO though, but many developers did not even understand his argument but just read the headline and concluded "GOTO bad".

[opportune]

I like him because he is outspoken rather than because he is edgy.

I don’t know how amenable he was to his arguments possibly being incorrect, but I love working with/knowing people who are that combination of outspoken and not-overly-stubborn. People like that are a firehose of ideas and knowledge, even if not everything they say is correct. They also usually are “passionate” about their work and at least competent enough to have unorthodox opinions that don’t just sound blatantly stupid.

Most people are too timid or low-ability to be outspoken at all.

[steego]

Alan Kay didn’t claim to invent it. He coined the term. He’ll be the first to tell you he was inspired by Simula.

https://www.quora.com/What-did-Alan-Kay-mean-by-I-made-up-th...

[vanderZwan]

> How many of you are proving your programs correct before entering them into the computer?

Not enough of us, that's how many.

Also, if he said this back when the majority of programs were written in assembly I think it makes a lot more sense.