diary80s

Edsger and Netty sitting behind Edsger's desk in his home in Nuenen.

My diary on what Dijkstra did in the 1980s.

 

Picture on the right: Edsger and his student Netty van Gasteren sitting behind Edsger's desk in his home in Nuenen. Notice the two telephones.

Morbid preoccupation with "specification languages"

Dated: 

17-31 January 1981

Dijkstra went on a trip to California, visiting universities and research centers. While doing so, he got annoyed by the many researchers who viewed the difficulties underlying multi-person software projects as "communication problems" and who, therefore, advocated new specification languages.

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Presentations versus Lectures

Dated: 

7-12 January 1981

On the basis of an IFIP WG 2.3 meeting in Han-sur-Lesse (Belgium), Dijkstra expressed his misgivings about the overhead projector. He preferred the blackboard much more and the interaction it required between him and the audience. That is, he preferred to give "lectures", not "presentations". Instead of preparing everything in advance, he wanted room to improvise during his lectures.

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