Re: Multiplicity, Change and MV

x wrote:
> "Bob Badour" <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> news:xO51g.61667$VV4.1151927_at_ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
>
> > http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD04xx/EWD498.html
>
> > What EWD said about COBOL goes triple for Pick.
>
> Thanks for the link. I specially like these ones:
>
> "Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's
> native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer."

I especially like that one.

> "Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics;
> the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians."
>
> "By claiming that they can contribute to software engineering, the soft
> scientists make themselves even more ridiculous. (Not less dangerous, alas!)

Too arrogant, as well as incorrect, in my opinion.

> In spite of its name, software engineering requires (cruelly) hard science
> for its support. "

 >
> "In the good old days physicists repeated each other's experiments, just to
> be sure. Today they stick to FORTRAN, so that they can share each other's
> programs, bugs included. "
>
> "Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability."

I also really liked
"The easiest machine applications are the technical/scientific computations."

I tried explaining to someone coding Pascal in the early 80's that I was doing business data processing rather than scientific programming because it was more challenging even though the algorithms were not.

> I noticed they were written when I was 2 years and 5 days old :-)

And about 2 years before I started my first programming job--COBOL and a little Fortran. Today's programming languages do not seem highly evolved beyond these in spite of Dijkstra's opinions and the introduction of OOP. Cheers! --dawn Received on Wed Apr 19 2006 - 16:11:17 CDT