I Don't Need To Waste My Time

In Passing I Draw Attention To Another English Expression Which Often Occurs In Dutch Texts: "the Real World". In Dutch - And I Am Afraid Not In Dutch Alone - Its Usage Is Almost Always A Symptom Of A Violent Anti-intellectualism.

I Would Therefore Like To Posit That Computing's Central Challenge, How Not To Make A Mess Of It, Has Not Yet Been Met.

When I Came Back From Munich, It Was September, And I Was Professor Of Mathematics At The Eindhoven University Of Technology. Later I Learned That I Had Been The Department's Third Choice, After Two Numerical Analysts Had Turned The Invitation Down; The Decision To Invite Me Had Not Been An Easy One, On The One Hand Because I Had Not Really Studied Mathematics, And On The Other Hand Because Of My Sandals, My Beard And My "arrogance" (whatever That May Be).

The Traditional Mathematician Recognizes And Appreciates Mathematical Elegance When He Sees It. I Propose To Go One Step Further, And To Consider Elegance An Essential Ingredient Of Mathematics: If It Is Clumsy, It Is Not Mathematics.

It Used To Be The Program's Purpose To Instruct Our Computers; It Became The Computer's Purpose To Execute Our Programs.