Donald Knuth (1974), in Structured Programming with Go To Statements. (Computing Surveys 6 (4): 261–301).
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A revolution is taking place in the way we write programs and teach programming, because we are beginning to understand the associated mental processes more deeply. It is impossible to read the recent [E. W. Dijkstra, O.-J. Dahl, and C. A. R. Hoare] book Structured Programming, without having it change your life. The reason for this revolution and its future prospects have been aptly described by E.W. Dijkstra in his 1972 Turing Award Lecture, The Humble Programmer.

— Donald Knuth

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "A revolution is taking place in the way we write programs and teach programming, because we are beginning to understand the associated mental processes more deeply. It is impossible to read the recent [E. W. Dijkstra, O.-J. Dahl, and C. A. R. Hoare] book Structured Programming, without having it change your life. The reason for this revolution and its future prospects have been aptly described by E.W. Dijkstra in his 1972 Turing Award Lecture, The Humble Programmer." in the context of "Donald Knuth (1974), in Structured Programming with Go To Statements. (Computing Surveys 6 (4): 261–301)." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Edsger W. Dijkstra" (Quotes about Dijkstra) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Edsger W. Dijkstra

About Edsger W. Dijkstra

Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (11 May 1930 – 6 August 2002) was a Dutch computer scientist, mathematician, programmer, software engineer, and science essayist.