EWD 709


I expect for computing scientists the most convenient way of thinking
and understanding to be rather unconventional.


[...] ALGOL 60 Report: its editor had the great advantage of being,
besides brilliant, a Dane.


[...] we cannot expect our designs to turn out to be any better than
the ways in which we have thought about them, for that would be a miracle.


Reading the literature, I must come to the sad conclusion that untrained
thinkers are rather the rule than the exception: people have been
taught facts and tricks, but not a methodology for using their brains
effectively.



EWD 896

To begin with I would like to recall that Science as a whole has
dismally failed to meet its original objectives. As you all remember,
those original objectives were three.

Firstly, there was the development of the Elixir that would give you
eternal youth.

But since there is little point in living in eternal poverty, the second
objective was the development of the Philosophers Stone, by means of
which you could make as much gold as you needed.

As you can imagine, the planning of these two grandiose research projects
required more foresight than could be provided by the seers of the day and
accurate prediction of the future became the third hot scientific topic.

We all know that, as the centuries went by, medicine divorced itself
from quackery --at least we hope so!--, that chemistry divorced itself
from alchemy and that astronomy divorced itself from astrology. This
is just another way of saying that, for tactful reasons, the original
objectives were forgotten.



As computing scientists we know that in our area, perhaps more than
everywhere else, mathematical elegance is not a dispensable luxury but
decides between success and failure.



Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it
and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity
sells better.



One can get credit for some complicated concepts one has introduced,
it is hard to get credit for the discovery how some established but
complicated concepts had better be avoided: those unaware of these
concepts won't notice your discovery and those with vested interests
in them will hate you for it. Hence my urgent advice to all of you to
reject the morals of the bestseller society and to find, to start with,
your reward in your own fun.