Hacker News Reader

Having EWD as a dissenter also seems a rather low bar, to be fair. (One might say he was a bit of a Edsgerlord.)

EWD is apparently Edsger W. Dijkstra for those also unaccustomed to reading him cited by his initials.

The appellation is in some part due to his custom of writing monographs for himself titled EWD-n[1]. They are a fascinating mix of deep mathematical and philosophical insight and curmudgeonly reflective essaying.

[1] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/

> writing monographs for himself

One might almost call it a "blog" if it weren't for the fact that EWD started ~35 years before Frontier NewsPage.

Yeah, if EWD had had his way, very little software would ever have been written. I think his insistence on proving the correctness of imperative programs is understandable but entirely wrong headed. The sheer amount of insight needed to get through the working day would be unattainable by most and unsustainable for all but a few.