I love this Dijkstra quote: 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.
As a formal Software Engineer, I now consider him to be possibly the most enlightened engineer that's ever existed in the field.
On one hand, his quotes have the ring of wisdom. On the other, the man was famously not an engineer and never brought a software project to fruition, to my knowledge.
These aren't necessarily contradictory, but you should keep it in mind. Knuth is much more of an engineer in the sense it's used on HN.
As to Dijkstra; enlightenment doesn't necessarily mean productive. Some of the least successful people I've ever met, can have absolutely sage like advice. Dijkstra was able to visualize things others could not, and explain novel solutions to those. On top of that he had a deep understanding of the life of a programmer and the complexities faced day in and day out.
You learn from mistakes. Unsuccessful = many mistakes?