RIP Edsger Dijkstra

[WDWHound]

Many of you will not have heard of this man, but he was one of the great computer scientests of our time. I was fortunate to attend several of his lectures at UT. He was a brilliant man, truly a giant in the field of computer science. His theories influence the way computer programmers think and work everyday.

Here is the obituary I received today:
"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 Neunen, the Netherlands."

So begins the obit of a great man in the history of computing. One of the Turing Award winners (equivalent to the Nobel Prize for Computing), Dijkstra was instrumental in the evolution of computers. Almost 50 years ago he helped develop Algol, one of the first structured programming languages. His seminal paper on "GOTO-less computing" was required reading for all computer science students. He spend the last 15 years or so as Professor Emeritus at UT-Austin.

 

[Towncrier]

The first programming language that I learned in college was Algol. I regret having never met Professor Dijkstra in person.

 

[nativetxn]

Sounds like the computing world lost a great leader when he died.