pitching in some longer quotes by prof. dr. Edsger W. Dijkstra:

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EW...

My point today is that, if we wish to count lines of code, we should
not regard them as "lines produced" but as "lines spent": the current
conventional wisdom is so foolish as to book that count on the wrong
side of the ledger.

...

needless to say, refusal to exploit this power of down-to-earth
mathematics amounts to intellectual and technological suicide.

...

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EW...

In other words, when building sand castles on the beach, we can ignore
the waves but watch the tide.

...

The other day I found in the University bookstore in Eindhoven a book
on how to use “Wordperfect 5.0” of more than 850 pages, in fact a
dozen pages more than my 1951 edition of Georg Joos, “Theoretical
Physics”. It is time to unmask the computing community as a Secret
Society for the Creation and Preservation of Artificial Complexity.

...

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD11xx/EW...

against "teamwork"

In the wake of the Cultural Revolution and now of the recession I
observe a mounting pressure to co-operate and to promote
"teamwork". For its anti-individualistic streak, such a drive is of
course highly suspect; some people may not be so sensitive to it, but
having seen the Hitlerjugend in action suffices for the rest of your
life to be very wary of "team spirit". Very. I have even read one text
that argued that university scientists should co-operate more in order
to become more competitive..... Bureaucracies are in favour of
teamwork because a few groups are easier to control than a large
number of rugged individuals. Granting agencies are in favour of
supporting large established organizations rather than individual
researchers, because the support of the latter, though much cheaper,
is felt to be more risky; it also requires more thinking per dollar
funding. Teamwork is also promoted because it is supposed to be more
efficient, though in general this hope is not justified.

...

It is the weak departments that are more tempted to seek each other's
support and to believe that there is might in numbers. But such
co-operation is of course based on the theory that, when you tie two
stones together, the combination will float.

...

To quote Harvey Earl of GM: "General Motors is in business for only
one reason. To make money. In order to do that we make cars. But if we
could make money by making garbage cans, we would make garbage
cans.". Some people might argue that they even tried to make money by
making garbage. But the product is secondary; to quote Harvey Earl
again: "Listen, I'd put smokestacks right in the middle of the sons of
bitches if I thought I could sell more cars.". These quotations are
from the fifties, but things have not changed that much.

...

Academic computing science is doing fine, thank you, and unless I am
totally mistaken, it will have a profound influence. I am not
referring to the changes that result from computers in their capacity
of tools. Okay, the equipment opens new opportunities for the
entertainment industry, but who cares about that anyhow. The equipment
has enabled the airline industry to make its rates so complicated and
volatile that you need an expert to buy a ticket, and for this
discouragement of air travel we can be grateful, but the true impact
comes from the equipment in its capacity of intellectual challenge.

...