EWD1000

A MEASURE OF DIJKSTRA'S SCIENTIFIC INFLUENCE

On 11 January 1987, Dijkstra wrote his one thousandth EWD. At the end of that EWD, Dijkstra made an important request:

Would everybody — and this time I really mean everybody — who sees this text be so kind as to inform me that he or she has seen it? A postcard stating name (and affiliation) suffices.

Dijkstra subsequently received several postcards and put them in a separate map which I now have in my possession. During the coming months, I will make the names of the postcards' senders publically available below. They are historically valuable because they help us grasp the extent of Dijkstra's influence.

Compliments from Philips (Brussels)

Submitted by egdaylight on Wed, 12/07/2011 - 17:07

Dated:

1987

Compliments from the Philips Research Laboratory in Brussels:

Dominique de Walefffe
Pascal Gribomont
André Rifaut
Dominique Roelants

Regards from Anne Kaldewaij

Submitted by egdaylight on Mon, 11/21/2011 - 09:17

betreft: Important Request

Waarde Edsger,

hierbij een Brabantsch Gebakkraam van een welbekend kunstenaar. Ik hoop nog vele EWD's te zullen lezen en wens je nog vele vruchtbare jaren toe! Geef ook Ria onze hartelijke groeten.

Tot weerziens

Anne Kaldewaij

Regards from Heikki Saikkonen

Submitted by egdaylight on Mon, 10/31/2011 - 09:11

Dated:

30 March 1987

Dear prof. Dijkstra,

I am spending my winter-holiday in a small cabin in the middle of Lapland. Days go in skiing, but in the evenings I have ample time to the latest EWD's (992–1000) which arrived already in late February. My normal working days are nowadays so full of all sorts off "duties", that interesting things have to be postponed to holidays. Anyway, I am enjoying EWD-series very much and eagerly waiting for the next thousand.

Yours ever,

Heikki Saikkonen

Congratulations from Dr. Gerald Futschek

Submitted by egdaylight on Thu, 08/18/2011 - 13:08

Dated:

23 March 1987

Dr. Gerald Futschek from the Techn. Univ. Wien sent his regards to Dijkstra:

Dear Prof. Dijkstra,

I read EWD 1000. Prof Seegmuller Leibniz Rechenzentrum in Munich send [sic] nearly all EWD's since Nr. 878 to me. They are very interesting for me, and a very important work in Computer Science. Congratulations!

[...]

P.S. I was participant of Marktoberdorf Summerschool in 1981 and 1984.

Regards from S. Doaitse Swierstra

Submitted by egdaylight on Tue, 08/02/2011 - 18:37

Dated:

3 March 1987

Dijkstra received a handwritten letter in Dutch from his nephew S. Doaitse Swierstra. It is interesting to note that, in his letter, Swierstra anticipated that a historian of science or a biologist would study the extent of Dijkstra's influence in terms of his EWDs.

Regards from Keith Marzullo

Submitted by egdaylight on Sun, 07/24/2011 - 18:00

Dated:

11 February 1987

A short letter from Keith Marzullo to Dijkstra:

I've been recieving copies of EWD since last August when I joined the Cornell CS Faculty as an assistant professor. Before that, I used to browse the copies of my advisor Susan Owicki.