Ashish Agarwal » Quotes

Dijkstra on elegance in programming

ashish — Wed, 25 May 2011 19:13:57 +0000

“programmers should not be puzzle-minded …. We would be much better served by clean, systematic minds, with a sense of elegance.”
— Dijkstra (In interview as reported in CACM)

Milner on science and language

ashish — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 16:52:30 +0000

“[Languages] should be treated as a part of a modelling theory. Up to now I don’t think we had sufficient incentive to make sure that our languages are close to scientific models. It’s only with the onset of computation as a global phenomenon that modelling those interactions becomes so scientifically important that it is bound to have its effect on programming languages.”
— Milner (3 Sep 2003, In interview conducted by Martin Berger)

Poincare on the necessity of hypothesis

ashish — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 02:53:55 +0000

“I consider a priori a law… Without this belief, … interpolation would be impossible; no law could be deduced from a finite number of observations; science would not exist.”
— Poincare (1913, p. 170)

Carnap on the challenge of interdisciplinary research

ashish — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:17:26 +0000

“If one is interested in the relations between fields which, according to customary academic divisions, belong to different departments, then he will not be welcomed as a builder of bridges, as he might have expected, but will rather be regarded … Continue reading →

Abelson, Sussman, and Sussman: programming languages are for humans

ashish — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:28:42 +0000

“programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute”
— Abelson, Sussman, and Sussman (1996)

Strunk and White on colons, commas, semicolons, dashes, and parentheses

ashish — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:41:28 +0000

“The colon has more effect than the comma, less power to separate than the semicolon, and more formality than the dash.”

“A dash is a mark of separation stronger than the comma, less formal than a colon, and more relaxed than parentheses.”
— Strunk and White (2000)

Notice how the two statements are consistent with respect to relative formality and power to separate.

Poincare on lazy thinking

ashish — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:41:08 +0000

“To doubt everything and to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; each saves us from thinking.”
— Poincare (1913, p. 27)

Buckminster Fuller: there is no such thing as artificial sweetener

ashish — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:16:00 +0000

“All the chemist can do is to find out what Nature permits, and any substances that are thus developed or discovered are inherently natural. It is very important to remember that.”
— Buckminster Fuller (1963, p. 76)

Andrews on the irrelevancy of numbers in mathematics

ashish — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 03:02:58 +0000

“To the unsophisticated observer of mathematics, it may appear that the use of numbers is the critical characteristic of disciplines which use mathematics, and that one can thus make a discipline more scientific by involving numbers in it more deeply. However, the really fundamental feature of mathematics is not numbers but logical rigor. While arguments involving numbers are often rigorous, it will be seen that a standard of rigor can be defined and maintained whether numbers are involved or not.”
— Andrews (2002, p. 3)

Martin-LÃ¶f says mathematics is informal

ashish — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 02:52:27 +0000

“Our main aim is to build up a system of formal rules representing in the best possible way informal (mathematical) reasoning.”
— Martin-LÃ¶f (1984, p. 4)