Dijkstra and other Big Names in Computer Science
There are several giants in computer science -- Edsger Dijkstra is one of them. Using the search engine of your choice, research Dijkstra and comment on your findings. Comment on your findings, then blog on!
7 Comments:
I find the paper on Edsgar Dijkstra very interesting do to the fact that the Go To command is still in programming languages to this day. He was the one that said it was consider harmful since the 1960's! Did he use the phrase, "spaggette code"? Why has it not been removed? It is still legal syntax. He also came up with the "shortest-path" algorithm which, although it doesn't really say, I am sure is helping modern processesor, become even faster and smaller. JAD
Why remove the functionality of the goto statement from modern compilers? Yes, it is terrible code when written into the source, but it IS the native command of the machine. Any loop you write eventually boils back down to gotos.
Also, removing said functionality won't help much. There are plenty of other ways for unskilled or untalented programmers to write terrible code.
-Jeff
Also, the shortest path algorithm has very little to do with computing, other than that it was discovered through computing.
Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm is actually a method of finding the shortest path between two vertices where the edges between individual vertices in the matrix have various 'weights' that are greater than or equal to 0.
You're dealing here with mathematical theory, which of course is related to computing, but which has, in this case, little to do with the evolution of our machines.
The GO TO statement actually does provide a means to get out of a buried loop. That is, you got loops within loops within loops. If you happen to get stuck inside a deeply buried loop, the goto statement can be very helpful.
Mikecoon
I disagree.
There's no such thing as being 'stuck' in a deep loop. There is always a proper algorithm that you can write as nested loops without using a GOTO. If you are 'stuck', you have simply failed. Keep trying/start over/something like that.
Jerry Smith said:
Dijkstra was first into theoretical physics before he realized he liked programming
jerry smith said:
gardon bell is a senior researcher in Microsoft's Media Presence Research Group. he is interested in multiproccessing. was responsible for the vax computing environment
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