Re: Some Laws

"Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> wrote:

[snip]

>Back to "legacy". As long as the word "legacy" is used as a pejorative in
>our field, our field is condemned to remain forever immature. I imagine
>that "legacy" was originally coined as a euphemism. But like all
>substitutes for pejoratives, it eventually became a pejorative itself.

     From my sig collection:

legacy (adj) - A pejorative term used in the computer industry meaning "it works."

>Our legacy includes Shannon and Turing, Von Neumann, Nash and Wiener,
>Dijkstra, Knuth, and Wirth. Vannevar Bush, Eckhart and Mauchly. Grace
>Hopper. Ed Codd, Date and Darwen. And so on, and so on. Why do we
>continue to let people graduate believing that the "stone age" ended 6 years
>ago.

     They can do something, but they do not know what else there is. I took some flak in the diploma program I just graduated from such people. Because I prefer a CLI for much of my work, I was told that I did not understand GUIs. That was not true, but the deer-in-headlights look when they had to deal with CLI was notable.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:

     I have preferences.
     You have biases.
     He/She has prejudices.