Edsger Dijkstra quote on Computer Science from RISKS

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: RISKS List Owner <risko () csl sri com>
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 16:54:17 -0800 (PST)
To: risks () csl sri com
Subject: Risks Digest 22.56

Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 09:55:17 -0800
From: Stan Mazor <smazor () numeritech com>
Subject: Edsger Dijkstra quote on Computer Science

  [From asilomar-news, noted by Robert G. Kennedy III in Hackers newsgroup,
  sent to RISKS by Ken Knowlton.  PGN]

  Edsger W. Dijkstra, *Communications of the ACM*, Mar 2001, Vol. 44, No. 3

  In academia, in industry, and in the commercial world, there is a
  widespread belief that computing science as such has been all but
  completed and that, consequently, computing has matured from a theoretical
  topic for the scientists to a practical issue for the engineers, the
  managers, and the entrepreneurs.  [...]

  I would therefore like to posit that computing's central challenge, "How
  not to make a mess of it," has not been met. On the contrary, most of our
  systems are much more complicated than can be considered healthy, and are
  too messy and chaotic to be used in comfort and confidence. The average
  customer of the computing industry has been served so poorly that he
  expects his system to crash all the time, and we witness a massive
  worldwide distribution of bug-ridden software for which we should be
  deeply ashamed.

  For us scientists it is very tempting to blame the lack of education of
  the average engineer, the shortsightedness of the managers, and the malice
  of the entrepreneurs for this sorry state of affairs, but that won't
  do. You see, while we all know that unmastered complexity is at the root
  of the misery, we do not know what degree of simplicity can be obtained,
  nor to what extent the intrinsic complexity of the whole design has to
  show up in the interfaces.  We simply do not know yet the limits of
  disentanglement. We do not know yet whether intrinsic intricacy can be
  distinguished from accidental intricacy.

  To put it bluntly, we simply do not know yet what we should be talking
  about, ... The moral is that whether computing science is finished will
  primarily depend on our courage and our imagination.

[Stanley Mazor, Director Customer Services, Numerical Technologies Inc.
70 West Plumeria Drive, San Jose, CA 95134-2134 1-408-273-4485]

------ End of Forwarded Message

-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To unsubscribe or update your address, click
  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/