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| ▲ | srean a day ago | parent | next [-] | | That's a famous quote and age might have mellowed him. But he was not like that at all in person with his students. He did insist that one be precise with ones words. The origin of the quote may have more to do with cultural differences between the Dutch and Americans. | | |
| ▲ | blast a day ago | parent | next [-] | | That's a great point which never occurred to me about Dijkstra, even though I knew where he came from. My father in law used to like this joke: "He was Dutch and behaved as such." | | |
| ▲ | Gibbon1 19 hours ago | parent [-] | | I feel there is a tension between computer science is math and computer science is plumbing. | | |
| ▲ | bittercynic 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Why not the both? Some seem to think that math is somehow above plumbing, but modern society couldn't exist without both, and I'd argue that modern plumbing is more critical to our health and well being than modern math. | |
| ▲ | tharkun__ 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The plumber knows how many inches per foot the pipe has to drop in order for the poop to flow away and not get stuck in the pipe. It's easy enough to either not drop it enough and everything gets stuck or for it to drop too much and the water flows away but the poop stays in place. And they're the ones that actually make it happen and their clients really do care about that in the end. Without knowing this the plumber is nothing. They don't necessarily need to know they why and especially don't need to calculate it out! Some mathematician can probably calculate that properly. Some mathematician probably first did calculate that out to prove it. I'm not entirely certain that a mathematician was the reason that we know what drop we need. A lot of things in "real life" were "empirically discovered" and used and done for centuries before a mathematician proved it. Exceptions prove the rule, like when we calculate(d) things out for space travel before ever attempting it ;) |
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| ▲ | antonvs 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I’d want to see an example of Dijkstra’s “arrogance” that wasn’t justified. The “truths that might hurt” essay is a great example. Yeah, the truth hurts for many people. People don’t like being called out on their folly, particularly if it’s something they don’t personally control. That Durant make it “arrogant” to point it out. Also, Alan Kaye is overrated. Object orientation is one of those painful truths. | | |
| ▲ | ninalanyon 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Object orientation is a great tool and I wouldn't be without it. But like all tools it has to be applied in the right way in the appropriate situation and is not universally useful. | |
| ▲ | strken 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm less concerned about "justified" and more about "useful". If you behave offensively to everyone around you, then you have become your own worst enemy in the war of ideas. Ignaz Semmelweis was right. He also died in an asylum, having utterly failed to convince doctors to wash their hands between patients. |
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| ▲ | rramadass a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Alan Kay himself said this quote is taken out-of-context and so people need to stop repeating it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11799963 | | |
| ▲ | vanderZwan 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The quote makes much more sense as an in-joke between two like-minded people, because Alan Kay isn't exactly humble himself nor does he avoid provocative statements. And speaking as a Dutch man, given the kind of humor we have I'm pretty certain Dijkstra appreciated a good roast like that too. | | |
| ▲ | rramadass 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The actual context is in this video where Kay makes the comment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47328782 | | |
| ▲ | vanderZwan 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Have seen that presentation, but that still does not give the full context. At least, I don't think it is obvious from the video alone whether this remark was a friendly jab between friends, or whether it was a stereotypical vicious academic back-and-forth between to big names in a field. | | |
| ▲ | rramadass 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think this is the sequence that led to the quote. 1) People are miffed with Dijkstra due to his abrasive style. 2) John Backus has a back-and-forth with Dijkstra where he calls him arrogant. 3) The community knows of the above. 4) Dijkstra writes paper comparing Computer Science approaches in Europe vs. USA
in his usual sharp style. 5) American Scientists perceive the above as dissing them and take umbrage. 6) Alan Kay writes a paper rebutting Dijkstra's paper pointing out that most of the Software is written on the American side. 7) Alan Kay then disses Dijkstra with this quote half-in-annoyance/half-tongue-in-cheek. |
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| ▲ | justin66 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > and so people need to stop repeating it That would seem to be your sentiment, not his, based on the link you shared. Rather than being censorious he shared a nice story on the matter. | | |
| ▲ | rramadass 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, it is not my sentiment nor am i being censorious. It can be inferred from Kay's own words. He probably was just poking fun in a tongue-in-cheek manner often seen amongst larger-than-life figures. John Backus called Edsger Dijkstra arrogant since the latter was highly critical of the former's research in functional programming (not the substance but the hyping). Kay was probably riffing off of that. The problem is that a lot of noobs/kids/oldies-who-should-know-better often dismiss(!) Dijkstra's work because of this silly quote. Thus in this case, a "nice story" is actually an obstacle to people reading Dijkstra. | | |
| ▲ | justin66 20 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Kay was probably riffing off of that. You don't need to hypothesize about all this, to put things in their proper context you could listen to the speech where he famously said it. https://youtu.be/aYT2se94eU0?t=324 | | |
| ▲ | rramadass 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, i knew of the video. That somewhat proves the point i make here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47331352 People only focus on that phrase since it makes a nice "talking point" and ignore all the other interesting things from Kay's talk. For example; i never knew that most of Euler's proofs were wrong w.r.t. rigorous approach as defined today! |
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| ▲ | messe 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > It can be inferred from Kay's own words. He probably was just poking fun in a tongue-in-cheek manner often seen amongst larger-than-life figures. ...is that not obvious from the original quote? Maybe it's a cultural difference (I'm from Ireland), but that's how I've always interpreted and it's never occurred to me that people took it seriously or as anything other than tongue in cheek. | | |
| ▲ | rramadass 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | The problem is with folks who don't know/have never read (seriously that is) Dijkstra. For example, every time somebody posts something about Dijkstra on HN/etc. somebody will trot out this silly quote and then others pile on (since it requires no effort) and derail any interesting conversation. It is human nature to have an opinion on everything and mediocrity often takes great pleasure in tearing down the greats (i mean the true ones) in order to soothe their own egos (since they know they don't measure up) i.e. "see? the great one is as flawed/mundane as us and i am showing him up". And Dijkstra was Dutch who are famously known to be blunt which is often perceived as arrogance by others :-) |
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| ▲ | masfuerte a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Weirdly, that ten-year-old Alan Kay comment is shown as "1 day ago" by HN. | | |
| ▲ | dang 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | Oof - not sure what happened there but it was probably a fat-fingered thing from me merging today's threads. Fixed now. Thanks for the heads-up! |
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