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+---
+title: "Philosophy"
+description: ""
+date: 2019-02-28T09:52:26+01:00
+publishDate: 2019-02-28T09:52:26+01:00
+author: "Dimitri Staessens"
+images: []
+draft: false
+tags: []
+---
+
+<center>![](https://effectivesoftwaredesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/quote-if-10-years-from-now-when-you-are-doing-something-quick-and-dirty-you-suddenly-visualize-that-i-edsger-dijkstra-50997.jpg)</center>
+
+During his entire scientific career, Edsger Dijkstra broke a lance for
+the creed -- which he attributes to Tony Hoare -- that [*simplicity is
+prerequisite for
+reliability*](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD619.html). He
+spent a lot of time and effort convincing his contemporaries in the
+computing science community that *elegance is not a dispensable
+luxury, but a matter of life and death*. Dijkstra was painfully aware
+that [*simplicity is very hard to
+achieve*](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD896.html)
+and grossly underrated, even to the point that the academic and
+economic reward systems work against any attempt do so: "*complexity
+sells better*". With some computer engineers living by the motto *move
+fast and break things*, Dijkstra would most definitely [not have been
+happy](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD12xx/EWD1213.html)
+with much of the current state of affairs of computing science. While
+he always will be considered one of the greatest computer scientists
+that ever lived, his passionate message to diligently strive for
+elegance seems to be all but erased from the collective consciousness
+of engineers and computer scientists. Are we further away today from
+computing's central challenge today than we were [almost 20 years ago]
+(https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD13xx/EWD1304.html)?
+
+<center>![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/move_fast_and_break_things.png)</center>
+
+