Re: Dijkstra gets it wrong [was: Re: D gets it right]

From: TLOlczyk (olczyk2002_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 02/17/04 

Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 22:14:44 -0600

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 12:08:01 GMT, gerryq@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
wrote:

>In article <slrnc2q9j4.2jnr.kamikaze@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>, kamikaze@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes) wrote:
>>
>>> Do you also
>>> agree with Dijkstra about object orientation?
>>> "Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea that
>>> could only have been invented in California."
>>> http://quote.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsger_Dijkstra
>>
Given that Dijkstra ( along with Hoare and Dahl ) is one of the
authors of one of the first books that describes OO ( I can't think
of another that was earlier ), allthough he did not write that
section.

It may well be that he did not think poorly of OO in general, but
of OO as presented by Smalltalk ( which was probably the defining
language of OO when he made that quote ). Perhaps it was properties
of OO as described by Smalltalk he objected to ( dynamic typing comes
to mind, but I'm not sure what he felt about typing in general ).

>
>Dijkstra seems incredibly overrated. As far as I can see he is famous
>for (a) a trivial pathfinding algorithm that must have been re-invented
>hundreds of times, and (b) a bunch of stupidly aggressive and
>wrong-headed comments, such as the above about OO, and the stupidity
>about Basic (which I interpret as meaning he was a crap teacher too).
>

He has three main claims to fame:
1) He basically invented a large structured programming ( goto
considered...).
2) He invented semaphores.
3) He brought a mathematical rigor to programming.
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**
Thaddeus L. Olczyk, PhD

There is a difference between
*thinking* you know something,
and *knowing* you know something.

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