, computer scientist and Turing Award recipient Edsger Dijkstra remarked that `` The use of COBOL cripples the mind ; its teaching should , therefore , be regarded as a criminal offense . '' , which was critical of several programming languages contemporaneous with COBOL , computer scientist and Turing Award recipient Edsger Dijkstra remarked that `` The use of COBOL cripples the mind ; its teaching should , therefore , be regarded as a criminal offense . ''