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Quote by Andrei Codrescu

“The real technology -behind all our other technologies- is language. It actually creates the world our consciousness lives in.”

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Andrei Codrescu

Andrei Codrescu, born on December 20, 1946, is an American poet, writer, critic, and broadcaster. His work blends various cultural elements and is known for its unique sense of humor and profound insight. more

“A 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.”

Ifs Thinking Important Use Language Learning Influence Habit Aspect Tools Train Profound Programming Elusive Computer Programming Programming Languages Computer Language

Book:A Discipline of Programming

Source: A Discipline of Programming

“John von Neumann draws attention to what seemed to him a contrast. He remarked that for simple mechanisms, it is often easier to describe how they work than what they do, while for more complicated mechanisms, it is usually the other way around.”

Way Simple Attention Learning Easier Draws Complicated Programming Mechanism Contrast Von Neumann

Author:Edsger Dijkstra

“Our intellectual powers are rather geared to master static relations and that our powers to visualize processes evolving in time are relatively poorly developed. For that reason we should do (as wise programmers aware of our limitations) our utmost to shorten the conceptual gap between the static program and the dynamic process, to make the correspondence between the program (spread out in text space) and the process (spread out in time) as trivial as possible.”

Should Reason Process Space Learning Wise Masters Intellectual Program Relation Spread Limitation Evolve Programming Gaps Programmers Static Correspondence

Author:Edsger Dijkstra

“We are all shaped by the tools we use, in particular: the formalisms we use shape our thinking habits, for better or for worse, and that means that we have to be very careful in the choice of what we learn and teach, for unlearning is not really possible.”

Thinking Mean Use Choices Teach Learning Particular Habit Shapes Tools Careful Programming

Author:Edsger Dijkstra

“Yes, I share your concern: how to program well -though a teachable topic- is hardly taught. The situation is similar to that in mathematics, where the explicit curriculum is confined to mathematical results; how to do mathematics is something the student must absorb by osmosis, so to speak. One reason for preferring symbol-manipulating, calculating arguments is that their design is much better teachable than the design of verbal/pictorial arguments. Large-scale introduction of courses on such calculational methodology, however, would encounter unsurmoutable political problems.”

“Text is linear; it is black and white; it doesn't zoom around the page in 3-D; it isn't intelligent by itself; in fact, in terms of immediate reaction it is quite boring. I can't imagine a single preliterate was ever wowed at the first sight of text, and yet text has been the basis of arguably the most fundamental intellectual transformation of the human species. It and its subforms, such as algebra, have made science education for all a plausible goal.”

“The first step in fixing a broken program is getting it to fail repeatably [on the simplest example possible].”

Firsts Steps Learning Failing Example Broken Program Programming First Steps Simplest Fixing Computer Programming Programming Languages Computer Language

Author:Tom Duff

“The proof of a high education is the ability to speak about complex matters as simply as possible.”

Matter Speak Ability Learning Complexes Proof Programming Computer Programming Programming Languages Computer Language Ability To Speak

Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote by Andrei Codrescu

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