alt Hacker NewsDijkstra? What is your go-to Dijkstra paper? His papers are like The short stories of Philip K Dick. Everything seems fine and straight forward, until you step into another world.
You are indeed privileged. What you have gained by reading them, is more than an education: It would be a journey, to read them, and your commentary.
I picked up a science fiction book, in a recycle bin, that for the most part belonged there, except for one chapter... one short chapter-and after I read it, the world started to swirl... "Human language had by this time, become mostly telepathic." Thank you, Joe Haldeman.
And Thank you Edsger W. Dijkstra.
I think what I appreciate most are the smaller notes, that probably don't represent a publishable result in any way.
There was one where he describes a problem that he had seen in an elementary school -- find a fraction between a/b and c/d. Everyone he talked to had the same basic answer; find a common denominator, find the midpoint, and if necessary, double the denominator. So 2/3 and 3/4 -> 8/12 and 9/12 -> 16/24 & 18/24 -> 17/24. And to him it was immediately obvious that a better answer is just (a+c)/(b+d), which he immediately intuited but then set out to make a better proof for.