[rescue] Re: G5 case

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Wed, 25 Jun 2003, Dave McGuire wrote:

>    The troubling part is, the kids being turned out of colleges as
> "computer programmers" these days don't have any understanding of how
> computers actually *work*...they've only been taught how to write code
> in object-oriented languages, thinking that understanding the low-level
> operations of computers is somehow "obsolete" or no longer necessary.

Dave, Dave, Dave.  It's worse than that.  They don't think that because
they've only used OO langauges.  They think that because they were
TAUGHT that.  I got into an argument with a professor at Rice[0] over
this very point.  Their argument is "programmer time is more expensive
than CPU time; therefore, you should concentrate on using the tools that
make your life easier, rather than what's going on in the CPU".

I nearly shit my pants.  Then I walked out of that class.

> I've found that, in general, their idea of the "power" or usefulness of
> a language is defined by how easy that language is to write code in.

This is also what they're being taught.  Java and C++ are "more
powerful" than C.  Scheme is "more powerful" than machine language.
These people COMPLETELY miss that everything has to get translated into
machine code at some point, anyway.  Wouldn't that make machine language
the most powerful of the heap?

[0] Rice does have at least three insanely-great low-level courses
    taught by someone that you'd no-doubt get along with.  His courses
    are referred to as "software boot camp".  Pulling shit that makes
    the program grossly less efficient or correct because it was easier
    to write will earn you no small amount of embarassment in front of
    your classmates due to a verbal reprimand that'll singe your hair
    off.  I loved every second of that class.
-- 
Jonathan Patschke   )  "Leave your lawsuits at home.  I have guns."
Elgin, TX          (                      --"Kountry" Mike Lundgren