Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
Edsger DijkstraRead
Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Computer science focuses on the principles behind computing rather than just the machines used.
Edsger Dijkstra's quote emphasizes that computer science is fundamentally about the theory and concepts that underpin computing, much like astronomy is about understanding celestial phenomena rather than solely the tools used to observe them. This highlights the importance of theoretical knowledge in any discipline and urges us to see the bigger picture beyond the physical tools at our disposal.
Themes
Computer ScienceTheoryKnowledgeEducationAstronomy
In practice
Example use cases
In a computer science class, a teacher might use this quote to inspire students to focus on concepts rather than just programming languages.
More from Edsger Dijkstra
All quotes βSimplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
Edsger DijkstraRead
The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.
Edsger DijkstraRead
We shall do a much better programming job, provided that we approach the task with a full appreciation of its tremendous difficulty, provided that we stick to modest and elegant programming languages, provided that we respect the intrinsic limitations of the human mind and approach the task as Very Humble Programmers.
Edsger DijkstraRead
The tools we use have a profound and devious influence on our thinking habits, and therefore on our thinking abilities.
Edsger DijkstraRead
LISP has jokingly been described as "the most intelligent way to misuse a computer." I think that description is a great compliment because it transmits the full flavour of liberation: it has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts.
Edsger DijkstraRead
Similar quotes
All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You'd be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men.
Isaac AsimovRead
Given the opportunity, under the right conditions, two cells from wildly different sources, a yeast cell, say, and a chicken erythrocyte, will touch, fuse, and the two nuclei will then fuse as well, and the new hybrid cell will now divide into monstrous progeny. Naked cells, lacking self-respect, do not seem to have any sense of self.
Lewis ThomasRead
...there is simply nothing so important to a people and its government as how many of them there are, whether their number is growing or declining, how they are distributed as between different ages, sexes, and different social classes and racial and ethnic groups, and again, which way these numbers are moving.
Daniel Patrick MoynihanRead
Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.
Susan SontagRead
...as our friend Zach has often noted, in our days those who do the best for astronomy are not the salaried university professors, but so-called dillettanti, physicians, jurists, and so forth.Lamenting the fragmentary time left to a professor has remaining after fulfilling his teaching duties.
Carl Friedrich GaussRead
The average ground temperature of the Earth is impossible to measure since most of the Earth is ocean...So this average ground temperature is a fiction.
Freeman DysonRead