My interpretation of Dijkstra is that a computer is an instrument for looking into another world that can only be glimpsed dimly without a computer, the world of fractals, large matrices, high dimensions, advanced compression algorithms, public key cryptography, and turbo codes. The fact that millions of people have computers is only slightly relevant to Dijkstra’s point, as I see it.
My interpretation of Dijkstra is that a computer is an instrument for looking into another world that can only be glimpsed dimly without a computer, the world of fractals, large matrices, high dimensions, advanced compression algorithms, public key cryptography, and turbo codes. The fact that millions of people have computers is only slightly relevant to Dijkstra’s point, as I see it.