I was convinced both of those quotes were from Dijkstra (as quotes go, the Mark Twain of CS).
Turns out, the second one is originally from one Phil Karlton (as reported by Tim Bray [1] , that's enough authority for me), without the "off-by-one" part.
The first one, which I was goddamned sure was Dijkstra, is actually by David (not A.) Wheeler (via Butler Lampson) [2], inventor of the subroutine.
That rabbit-hole took me longer than expected. Hopefully I'm saving some time for someone else ;)
My quote list has the second half as a later elaboration:
"All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection"
"But that usually will create another problem."
-- David Wheeler
"...except for the problem of too many layers of indirection."
-- Kevlin Henney
Turns out, the second one is originally from one Phil Karlton (as reported by Tim Bray [1] , that's enough authority for me), without the "off-by-one" part.
The first one, which I was goddamned sure was Dijkstra, is actually by David (not A.) Wheeler (via Butler Lampson) [2], inventor of the subroutine.
That rabbit-hole took me longer than expected. Hopefully I'm saving some time for someone else ;)
[1] https://twitter.com/timbray/status/506146595650699264
[2] http://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/inbook/beautiful_code/html/...