> Colleagues from outside the state (still!) often wonder how I can survive in a place like Austin, Texas, automatically assuming that Texas’s solid conservatism guarantees equally solid mediocrity. My usual answer is something like “Don’t worry. The CS Department is quite an enlightened place...

Very Dijkstra to start by insulting the intended audience. Wonder if it had the intended effect?

I don't see the insult? He's saying that anyone who assumes that the CS program was mediocre is mistaken

One could interpret it as pointing out bias or ignorance. Considering the slightly condescending tone of the sentence it could be seen as an insult.

I'm not a native English speaker. Where is the insult?

Mediocrity is not praise.

Thank you for mentioning, finding and linking to this!

Note that Dijkstra recommendes Haskell over Java because Haskell is arcane and mathematical, which is good for learning computer science, not because it's good for writing software.

Your paraphrasing of "novel" as "arcane" is in bad faith. It is also self evident that djikstra believes that learning computer science is good for writing software.

No one would recommend a language “because it’s arcane.”

I would recommend a language because it's different than anything you're familiar with. It gives you more approaches to solving problems.

I'm gonna need a quote on that one