<p>In one of his papers Edgser Dijkstra makes a statement like:</p>

<p>"What we consider to be the standard case is one case among many exceptional cases only it occurs more often " or something along such lines.</p>

<p>Does any one know the paper it came from or the exact quotation?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-23T11:22:51.757Z
Guys this question is languishing. Is Dijkstra so yesterday that some of the brightest minds in CS don't know the answer?

Yours in desperation.
vfclists
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-23T12:16:16.790Z
Much of Dijkstra's writings were never published, and are only available as handwritten (and thus unsearchable) manuscripts. There's an archive of these at http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/
Max
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-23T15:09:53.230Z
@Max: Not necessarily "unsearchable". I just performed a search on the word 'exceptional' at that very archive to see what results I would find. Perhaps this search did not manage to cover all of his notes, but the EWD archive has been around for long enough and with enough apparent love and care that I suspect all of them have been combed over with OCR by now.
Niel de Beaudrap
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-23T15:12:55.353Z
@NieldeBeaudrap The quotation is not exact, the word exceptional may not even appear in it. I just tried to phrase it the way I remember it. The exact words may be completely different
vfclists
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-23T18:27:20.143Z
this yogi-berra-like quote sounds plausible esp given much references to "cases" in his writing & his aptness to write aphorisms... searched the archive & online quotes of which there are a few compilations but did not find it. imho its a maybe a needle in a haystack if theres something like it considering how many papers he wrote. can you narrow it down any further? any idea what was the spec subj of the paper or rough date etc? its not much to go on and we dont know how accurate your memory is...
vzn
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2012-10-23T18:30:30.997Z
and note for the [large Dijkstra Papers archive 1948-2002](http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/00378/cah-00378.html) it says "the bulk of the collection is in dutch". could the quote be in dutch?
vzn
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-23T18:33:47.000Z
@vzn I am sure it is an English paper or perhaps it was translated. I think it was in one of his earlier monographs on structured programming, when he began to express his views on the thought processes relating to programming
vfclists
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-23T21:00:24.220Z
I spent some time googling around to see what I could find, and drew a blank.
Suresh Venkat
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-24T00:49:23.057Z
vfclists, you seem to be one of the few to have noted that quote in isolation; if others had extracted it, think it might have shown up with google and in one of his quote lists. fyi saw a pg that said he's written "hundreds of papers"! maybe someday advanced technology will exist to search by author, date, and near quotation! and obviously, plz do not take this apparent lack of photographic memory by the collective intelligence of this site for lack of reverence or memory for dijkstra....!
vzn
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-20T05:17:23.103Z
I think it would generally help in your research if you spelled the name of the researcher, Edsger Dijkstra, correctly :)
Jérémie
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-20T09:49:34.530Z
It thought about it and thought it was correct. I guess I should have looked closer
vfclists
<reference-request><soft-question><ho.history-overview>
Looking for a quotation by Edsger Dijkstra
vfclists
# Looking for a quotation by Edsger Dijkstra

(Asked by: username_0 on 2012-10-19)

In one of his papers Edgser Dijkstra makes a statement like:

"What we consider to be the standard case is one case among many exceptional cases only it occurs more often " or something along such lines.

Does any one know the paper it came from or the exact quotation?

**Tags:** reference-request, soft-question, ho.history-overview
> **Comments:**
> **username_5**: I think it would generally help in your research if you spelled the name of the researcher, Edsger Dijkstra, correctly :)  
> **username_0**: It thought about it and thought it was correct. I guess I should have looked closer  
> **username_0**: Guys this question is languishing. Is Dijkstra so yesterday that some of the brightest minds in CS don't know the answer?  Yours in desperation.  
> **username_1**: Much of Dijkstra's writings were never published, and are only available as handwritten (and thus unsearchable) manuscripts. There's an archive of these at http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/  
> **username_2**: @Max: Not necessarily "unsearchable". I just performed a search on the word 'exceptional' at that very archive to see what results I would find. Perhaps this search did not manage to cover all of his notes, but the EWD archive has been around for long enough and with enough apparent love and care that I suspect all of them have been combed over with OCR by now.  
> **username_0**: @NieldeBeaudrap The quotation is not exact, the word exceptional may not even appear in it. I just tried to phrase it the way I remember it. The exact words may be completely different  
> **username_3**: this yogi-berra-like quote sounds plausible esp given much references to "cases" in his writing & his aptness to write aphorisms... searched the archive & online quotes of which there are a few compilations but did not find it. imho its a maybe a needle in a haystack if theres something like it considering how many papers he wrote. can you narrow it down any further? any idea what was the spec subj of the paper or rough date etc? its not much to go on and we dont know how accurate your memory is...  
> **username_3**: and note for the [large Dijkstra Papers archive 1948-2002](http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/00378/cah-00378.html) it says "the bulk of the collection is in dutch". could the quote be in dutch?  
> **username_0**: @vzn I am sure it is an English paper or perhaps it was translated. I think it was in one of his earlier monographs on structured programming, when he began to express his views on the thought processes relating to programming  
> **username_4**: I spent some time googling around to see what I could find, and drew a blank.  
> **username_3**: vfclists, you seem to be one of the few to have noted that quote in isolation; if others had extracted it, think it might have shown up with google and in one of his quote lists. fyi saw a pg that said he's written "hundreds of papers"! maybe someday advanced technology will exist to search by author, date, and near quotation! and obviously, plz do not take this apparent lack of photographic memory by the collective intelligence of this site for lack of reverence or memory for dijkstra....!  

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## 0 answers

