Simplicity and elegance are unpopular because they require hard work and discipline to achieve and education to be appreciated.
Edsger DijkstraI would therefore like to posit that computing's central challenge, how not to make a mess of it, has not yet been met.
Edsger DijkstraA programming language is a tool that has profound influence on our thinking habits.
Edsger DijkstraSo-called "natural language" is wonderful for the purposes it was created for, such as to be rude in, to tell jokes in, to cheat or to make love in (and Theorists of Literary Criticism can even be content-free in it), but it is hopelessly inadequate when we have to deal unambiguously with situations of great intricacy, situations which unavoidably arise in such activities as legislation, arbitration, mathematics or programming.
Edsger DijkstraA most important, but also most elusive, aspect of any tool is its influence on the habits of those who train themselves in its use. If the tool is a programming language this influence is, whether we like it or not, an influence on our thinking habits.... A programming language is a tool that has profound influence on our thinking habits.
Edsger Dijkstra