Edsger Wybe Dijkstra was one of the pioneers of theoretical computer science. Beginning in the late 1940s he helped develop what became modern computing architecture. It is said that Dijkstra was the person who found the answer to a problem that others weren't even aware existed.

Throughout his career as a legendary algorithm researcher and inventor, Dijkstra promoted the idea that programming languages constitute both science and art. He contributed greatly to the understanding of these languages' structure, description, and implementation. His fifteen years of publications extend from theoretical articles on graph theory to basic manuals, textbooks, and philosophical observations on the field of programming languages.

Dijkstra was born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, to educated parents: his father was a chemist working as a chemistry teacher and superintendent, and his mother was a mathematician. In 1942 he entered the Gymnasium Erasminium and was educated in a comprehensive group of...