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Re: Interesting Rant [message #51313 is a reply to message #51312]

Tue, 14 November 2006 10:36

Paul Van Delst[1]
Messages: 1157
Registered: April 2002

Senior Member

David Fanning wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Someone sent me a link to this interesting IDL rant this morning:
>
> http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/07/sstvinc2/research/st upid.html

Hee hee. I thought it was pretty funny. I probably would've done something similar back
when I was one of dem young whippersnappers (well, I would've if anything but Fortran was
available....)

Apart from the fact that some of the info was just wrong, the rant shows the writers lack
of experience with programming languages in general. To say nothing of exiting college and
entering the real world where being able to distinguish and effectively handle the
differences between the the way things *should* be and the way they actually *are* are a
definite plus.

Ah... the innocence and passion of youth. :o)

Seeing as the ranter states he/she is a CS major, I think the following quote is somewhat
topically pithy (seeing as the original article was brought to my attention on this
newsgroup... I think):

"Formal logical proofs, and therefore programs ï¿½ formal logical proofs that particular
computations are possible, expressed in a formal system called a programming language ï¿½
are /utterly meaningless/. To write a computer program you have to come to terms with
this, to accept that whatever you might want the program to mean, the machine will blindly
follow its meaningless rules and come to some meaningless conclusion. In the test the
consistent group [good programmers] showed a pre-acceptance of this fact: they are capable
of seeing mathematical calculation problems in terms of rules, and can follow those rules
wheresoever they may lead. The inconsistent group [so-so programmers], on the other hand,
looks for meaning where it is not. The blank group [bad programmers] knows that it is
looking at meaninglessness, and refuses to deal with it."

From: www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/research/PhDArea/saeed/paper1.pdf

If one can program well in IDL, I reckon one's "utterly meaningless" detector must be
pretty well calibrated. :oD

cheers,

paulv

--
Paul van Delst Ride lots.
CIMSS @ NOAA/NCEP/EMC Eddy Merckx
Ph: (301)763-8000 x7748
Fax:(301)763-8545

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[Message index]

		Re: Interesting Rant By: Braedley on Wed, 15 November 2006 07:47
		Re: Interesting Rant By: Jo Klein on Wed, 15 November 2006 07:20
		Re: Interesting Rant By: Maarten[1] on Wed, 15 November 2006 07:17
		Re: Interesting Rant By: K. Bowman on Wed, 15 November 2006 06:47
		Re: Interesting Rant By: greg michael on Wed, 15 November 2006 07:03
		Re: Interesting Rant By: David Fanning on Wed, 15 November 2006 06:10
		Re: Interesting Rant By: Maarten[1] on Wed, 15 November 2006 05:25
		Re: Interesting Rant By: Robbie on Tue, 14 November 2006 17:13
		Re: Interesting Rant By: James Kuyper on Tue, 14 November 2006 15:25
		Re: Interesting Rant By: Richard Edgar on Tue, 14 November 2006 11:13
		Re: Interesting Rant By: David Fanning on Tue, 14 November 2006 11:09
		Re: Interesting Rant By: news.qwest.net on Tue, 14 November 2006 10:56
		Re: Interesting Rant By: Paul Van Delst[1] on Tue, 14 November 2006 10:36
		Re: Interesting Rant By: David Fanning on Wed, 15 November 2006 10:44
		Re: Interesting Rant By: Earl F. Glynn on Wed, 15 November 2006 09:19
		Re: Interesting Rant By: Paul Van Delst[1] on Thu, 16 November 2006 08:02
		Re: Interesting Rant By: Earl F. Glynn on Wed, 15 November 2006 09:07
		Re: Interesting Rant By: Jeff Hester on Sat, 18 November 2006 13:42
		Re: Interesting Rant By: fburton on Wed, 15 November 2006 10:24
		Re: Interesting Rant By: Paolo Grigis on Wed, 15 November 2006 09:02

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