"Do only what only you can do" [my emph]

a brilliant quote from Edsger Wybe Dijkstra 1930 - 2002


"The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simpicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay." ~Sir Anthony Hoare, 1980

introductory quote from EWD1304 one of the many EWD papers accessible from In Pursuit of Simplicity the manuscripts of Edsger W. Dijkstra

his stark criticism of todays software systems reminded me of Why Systems Fail and Problems Sprout Anew which also talks about how we continualy remove symptoms and then find new ones to blame

The impact of these papers was I think in part increased by the fact that they are all (I think) hand written and then photocopied and sent to the various recipients (they have subsequently been collected, scanned and made available as pdf).


Edsger's handwriting



would make a nice starting point for a typeface (i reckon)

maybe I'll try?