| HN Mirror

The OP's post does not have enough data for you to make the conclusions that you made. You are merely extrapolating from your preconceived bias which is wrong. A few issues;

Comparing greats like Dijkstra, Iverson etc. is silly; each is great in his own way. However Dijkstra definitely wrote much more than any of his peers thus allowing us to better understand his modes of thinking and reasoning behind his statements. Hence your comparison is purely subjective bias.

I have already pointed out that Dijkstra placed the ability to formally reason a program over everything else. What Hui is implying is that APL's design focus on communication aids in the above which is true to a certain extent. Dijkstra draws a hard line here stating that it must not be at the expense of formal reasoning. In EWD1036 Dijkstra explicitly calls this out w.r.t. visual programming languages/systems.

I don't think Hui is comprehending any insults/slights which for some reason you seem fixated on. He merely, diplomatically implies that perhaps Dijkstra is wrong w.r.t. his comments about APL programmers. Dijkstra's note is primarily about APL aficionados and their shortcomings; there is nothing about his views on APL itself except to note that a language influences its practitioner. We also don't know what was in the original note to which Dijkstra penned this response; this Dr.Caplin might have made some snide remarks (probable given the phrase And you, too, write to me that you would like to meet me in your part of the world, so that you can “demonstrate APL” to me.) and so the sharpness of Dijkstra's response can be justified.

Regardless of any/all of the above; it is quite silly to focus on trivial and ephemeral human behavioural aspects and neglecting the very real knowledge to be gained. All greats have some behavioural quirks which one must learn to overlook if we are to learn from them. In the case of Dijkstra, he wrote so prodigiously that not only can you gain new knowledge, but can learn modes of thinking and reasoning which are applicable universally i.e. the meta-knowledge of "learning to learn". Few authors have the genius to provide you with this essence of education.

To conclude, i recently came to know of an author named Trevanian and some of his quotes, one of which seems very pertinent here.

“Your scorn for mediocrity blinds you to its vast primitive power. You stand in the glare of your own brilliance, unable to see into the dim corners of the room, to dilate your eyes and see the potential dangers of the mass, the wad of humanity. Even as I tell you this, dear student, you cannot quite believe that lesser men, in whatever numbers, can really defeat you. But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring — but inevitably victorious. The amoeba outlives the tiger because it divides and continues in its immortal monotony. The masses are the final tyrants. ... The roar of the plodders is inarticulate, but deafening. They have no brain, but they have a thousand arms to grasp and clutch at you, drag you down.”

― Trevanian, Shibumi

This is what we need to guard against i.e. "not become mediocre" (and add to the noise on the Internet) in our own communications/behaviour on social media and elsewhere. We need to focus on the s/n ratio always.