Edsger W Dijkstra (EWD) on Programing

… what society overwhelmingly asks for is snake oil.

Of course, the snake oil has the most impressive names — otherwise you would be selling nothing — like “Structured Analysis and Design”, “Software Engineering”, “Maturity Models”, “Management Information Systems”, “Integrated Project Support Environments” “Object Orientation” and “Business Process Re-engineering” (the latter three being known as IPSE, OO and BPR, respectively).

— Edsger W Dijkstra (1930 to 2002), in EWD 1175: The strengths of the academic enterprise http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD11xx/EWD1175.html

The required techniques of effective reasoning are pretty formal, but as long as programming is done by people that don't master them, the software crisis will remain with us and will be considered an incurable disease. And you know what incurable diseases do: they invite the quacks and charlatans in, who in this case take the form of Software Engineering gurus.

—Edsger Dijkstra (1930 to 2002) in EWD 1305 https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD13xx/EWD1305.html

The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.

— EWD498 How do we tell truths that might hurt?, EWD498 https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD04xx/EWD498.html