Logic List Mailing Archive

Death of Edsger Dijkstra

Professor Edsger Wybe Dijkstra, a noted pioneer of the science and
industry of computing, died after a long struggle with cancer on 6 August
2002 at his home in Nuenen, the Netherlands.

Dijkstra was born in 1930 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, the son of a
chemist father and a mathematician mother. He graduated from the Gymnasium
Erasmianum in Rotterdam and obtained degrees in mathematics and
theoretical physics from the University of Leyden and a Ph.D. in computing
science from the University of Amsterdam. He worked as a programmer at the
Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam, 1952-62; was professor of mathematics,
Eindhoven University of Technology, 1962-1984; and was a Burroughs
Corporation research fellow, 1973-1984. He held the Schlumberger
Centennial Chair in Computing Sciences at the University of Texas at
Austin, 1984-1999, and retired as Professor Emeritus in 1999.

Dijkstra is survived by his wife of over forty years, Maria (Ria) C.
Dijkstra Debets, by three children, Marcus J., Femke E., and computer
scientist Rutger M. Dijkstra, and by two grandchildren.

Dijkstra was the 1972 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, often viewed as
the Nobel Prize for computing. He was a member of the Netherlands Royal
Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, and a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. He
received the 1974 AFIPS Harry Goode Award, the 1982 IEEE Computer Pioneer
Award, and the 1989 ACM SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contributions to
Computer Science Education. Athens University of Economics awarded him an
honorary doctorate in 2001. In 2002, the C&C Foundation of Japan
recognized Dijkstra "for his pioneering contributions to the establishment
of the scientific basis for computer software through creative research in
basic software theory, algorithm theory, structured programming, and
semaphores".

Dijkstra is renowned for the insight that mathematical logic is and must
be the basis for sensible computer program construction and for his
contributions to mathematical methodology. He is responsible for the idea
of building operating systems as explicitly synchronized sequential
processes, for the formal development of computer programs, and for the
intellectual foundations for the disciplined control of nondeterminacy. He
is well known for his amazingly efficient shortest path algorithm and for
having designed and coded the first Algol 60 compiler. He was famously the
leader in the abolition of the GOTO statement from programming.

Dijkstra was a prodigious writer. His entire collection of over thirteen
hundred written works was digitally scanned and is accessible at
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD. He also corresponded regularly with
hundreds of friends and colleagues over the years --not by email but by
conventional post. He strenuously preferred the fountain pen to the
computer in producing his scholarly output and letters.

Dijkstra was notorious for his wit, eloquence, and way with words, such as
in his remark "The question of whether computers can think is like the
question of whether submarines can swim"; his advice to a promising
researcher, who asked how to select a topic for research: "Do only what
only you can do"; and his remark in his Turing Award lecture "In their
capacity as a tool, computers will be but a ripple on the surface of our
culture. In their capacity as intellectual challenge, they are without
precedent in the cultural history of mankind."

Dijkstra enriched the language of computing with many concepts and
phrases, such as structured programming, separation of concerns,
synchronization, deadly embrace, dining philosophers, weakest
precondition, guarded command, the excluded miracle, and the famous
"semaphores" for controlling computer processes. The Oxford English
Dictionary cites his use of the words "vector" and "stack" in a computing
context.

Dijkstra enjoyed playing Mozart for his friends on his Boesendorfer piano.
He and his wife had a fondness for exploring state and national parks in
their Volkswagen bus, dubbed the Touring Machine, in which he wrote many
technical papers.

Throughout his scientific career, Dijkstra formulated and pursued the
highest academic ideals of scientific rigour untainted by commercial,
managerial, or political considerations. Simplicity, beauty, and eloquence
were his hallmarks, and his uncompromising insistence on elegance in
programming and mathematics was an inspiration to thousands. He judged his
own work by the highest standards and set a continuing challenge to his
many friends to do the same. For the rest, he willingly undertook the role
of Socrates, that of a gadfly to society, repeatedly goading his native
and his adoptive country by remarking on the mistakes inherent in
fashionable ideas and the dangers of time-serving compromises. Like
Socrates, his most significant legacy is to those who engaged with him in
small group discussions or scientific correspondence about half-formulated
ideas and emerging discoveries. Particularly privileged are those who
attended his reading groups in Eindhoven and Austin, known as the "Tuesday
Afternoon Clubs".

At Dijkstra's passage, let us recall Phaedo's parting remark about
Socrates: "we may truly say that of all the men of his time whom we have
known, he was the wisest and justest and best."