Quote: I found an amusing quote from Alan Kay on Dijkstra, from his 1997 OOPSLA keynote: 'I don't know how many of you have ever met Dijkstra, but you probably know that arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras.' [audience laughter][1]. --24.184.131.16 20:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
(If I put "1 wolfram" into Alpha then it tells me about Stephen Wolfram. If I put "2 wolfram" into Alpha it tells me about tungsten. I guess that when you ask it for "1 whatever", it first simplifies it to "whatever", and then you can have variable quantities of tungsten but not of Stephen Wolfram.)
On the other hand, referring to "1 wolfram", some would argue that one wolfram could greatly exceed 10^12 nano-dijkstras... Dijkstra was actually quite smart and from reading his essays, I'd consider him quite humble, not arrogant at all.
He had that "old-noble-European cold-joking-seriousness" and most Americans are known to be incapable of understanding this tone of communication.