Re: Some Laws

"Marshall Spight" <mspight_at_dnai.com> wrote in message news:RBO4d.247489$Fg5.211785_at_attbi_s53...

> Sure. 25 year olds say stupid things because they have just enough
> of a smidgeon of experience to actually be getting some confidence,
> but not enough actual experience to really know anything. But to
> generalize from 25 year old Java programmers to all Java programmers
> is not a valid thing to do.

I don't even want to generalize to all 25 year olds.

On one of my contracts, I worked alongside someone who was both able to learn from me and to teach me things I needed to know. She was about 25, or less. She had been a math major, before going into the IT trade. The thing I love about math majors is that they know how to think. Mathematicians had been "reusing" theorems for centuries before programmers learned how to "reuse code".

I was 25 once. And I probably misunderestimated the value of what I could learn from those around me. But I did keep on learning. It's the people who are so thoroughly convinced that they know everything of importance that they no longer need to learn that say most of the really dumb things.

>
> 25 year old linux programmers will tell you that Linus invented the
> monolithic kernel, which everyone now agrees is the superior
> design, and that marketplace success has proven the microkernel
> approach to be tecnically inferior. That this is a profoundly ignorant
> statement to make doesn't extend to proof of the idea that all linux
> programmers are idiots.

I once attended a seminar on group problem solving. The most important concept I got out of the seminar, one that I retain to this day, is this: "No one is a total fool."

> The vast majority of the process of design is picking and choosing
> from preexisting ideas, and trying to put them together in a useful
> and coherent way. Often the interesting or original part is the
> particular combination of ideas chosen.

Excellent point! Received on Fri Sep 24 2004 - 13:18:34 CEST