I have come around to worshiping the pioneers :-) Edsger W. Dijkstra, Niklaus Wirth, Tony Hoare etc.

Though i have not read all their works (nor completely understood their ideas) just the way of exposition and breadth of their thoughts, the insistence on mathematical rigour and formalism etc. always makes me think that i don't yet understand what "programming" is all about. Just slinging code is NOT enough. The idea of programming to a specification using "correctness by design" methodologies (eg. Hoare triples and logic) seems to me to be fundamental to programming. And yet most of us only follow "trial and error" methodology limited by our own lack of knowledge and discipline.