Dijkstra Meyer Hypothesis

In some ways, the equivalent of the SapirWhorfHypothesis for programming languages. The DijkstraMeyerHypothesis (hereby named for two noted and often-controversial computer scientists, EwDijkstra and BertrandMeyer, who suggested such in their writings) is the proposition that learning a programming language can "shape" how one things about programming; and negatively influence one's ability to learn different ProgrammingParadigms and styles. Frequently, those who advocate this hypothesis (including Dijkstra and Meyer at various times), go further and make the claim that some language, paradigm, or style is inherently bad; and that it ought not be taught by universities (despite industry demands that it should be) not only because it's bad in and of itself, but because learning the language/paradigm/style will pollute the student's mind; making it difficult (or impossible) for him to be taught the "correct" thing.

Of course, it should be noted that unlike Sapir and Whorf; neither Dijkstra nor Meyer engaged in any research (in collaboration, or separately) to demonstrate the hypothesis which is now being named for them. However, their writings are filled with numerous quotes, articles, and/or rants where it is suggested--almost always in the context of bashing whatever is fashionable in industry at the time. Both men were designers of programming languages (AlgolSixty, EiffelLanguage) which were conceptually elegant (for the time) but not widely used in industry.

Dijkstra is famous for quotes such as "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence"; and "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."; both from the paper HowDoWeTellTruthsThatMightHurt.

From the same paper; a good summary of the hypothesis:

"The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities."

Meyer's writings are full of similar remarks. He penned (among others) the famous rant BewareOfCeeHackers. (See also BertrandMeyerAndHisOpinions)

There is, that I'm aware of, little or no scientific evidence in support of this hypothesis. Yet is repeated as fact loudly and often; by folks from all walks of ComputerScience--folks with nothing in common but the fact that their favorite tool or methodology isn't as fashionable as they would like.

CategoryRant (is there a category for rants about the ranting of others? CategoryMetaRant? maybe...)