as long as computing science is not allowed to save the computer industry, we had better see to it that the computer industry does not kill computing science." - Meaning and context.">
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Industry suffers from the managerial dogma that for the sake of stability and continuity, the company should be independent of the competence of individual employees. Hence industry rejects any methodological proposal that can be viewed as making intellectual demands on its work force. Since in the US the influence of industry is more pervasive than elsewhere, the above dogma hurts American computing science most. The moral of this sad part of the story is that as long as computing science is not allowed to save the computer industry, we had better see to it that the computer industry does not kill computing science.

— Edsger W. Dijkstra

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Industry suffers from the managerial dogma that for the sake of stability and continuity, the company should be independent of the competence of individual employees. Hence industry rejects any methodological proposal that can be viewed as making intellectual demands on its work force. Since in the US the influence of industry is more pervasive than elsewhere, the above dogma hurts American computing science most. The moral of this sad part of the story is that as long as computing science is not allowed to save the computer industry, we had better see to it that the computer industry does not kill computing science." in the context of "Dijkstra (1999) "Computing Science: Achievements and Challenges" (EWD 1284)." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Edsger W. Dijkstra" (Quotes, 1990s) 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.