[clug] [OT] Broadband clangers

[Scott Ferguson]

 On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:46:54 +1000 Alex Satrapa <grail at goldweb.com.au>
wrote:

> To: CLUG List <linux at lists.samba.org>
> Subject: Re: [clug] [OT] Broadband clangers
> Message-ID: <D4847DED-F57B-42B8-9C96-FD3249E48669 at goldweb.com.au>
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>
> On 12/08/2010, at 15:00 , Scott Ferguson wrote:
>
>> > http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2010/02/demons-really.html
> To be fair, once you can describe something like "Sloth" as a demon, it becomes easier to explain to people how to expurgate that demon from the source code of their mind.  Being able to externalise the condition as a "demon" makes it easier to accept that the behaviour is occurring, and thus accept responsibility for stopping the behaviour.
>
> In much the same way, explaining to a guy that "there's this bug that somehow creeped into your code" helps externalise the flaw in the guy's work as "a bug" rather than "your mistake". It's not like the bug is *really* an entity that worked his way into your code without your knowledge. But we talk about them that way, don't we?
>
> So why is it okay for programmers to talk about "bugs", but it's not okay for religious folks to talk about "demons" without being ridiculed?  

Because that's cheese and crackers?? :-)

> Their failure to understand the programming language of the human brain doesn't stop the bugs from existing does it? 
> Do *you* know the programming language of the brain?
 

Apropos?

> Purging someone of Sloth is pretty much the same as debugging that performance issue where the database was being hit for every iteration of a loop. Part of the process is removing the immediate problem, the rest is figuring out how that problem got there in the first place, and adjusting the attitude of the person responsible (in the coding world we talk about "design patterns", in the personal development world you might talk about "healthy habits").
>
> I can't help but wonder why Linus felt the need to ridicule those people, just because he didn't understand what they were talking about.
Understanding and believing are not the same thing. Like the difference
between missionaries and believers?
Linus's reasoning is much further down the linked page... my point in
bringing it up in the first place is:- some people feel a need to
*force* their opinions on others. Which is not the same as stating an
opinion.

I doubt the driving out of demons he referred to was done at a
distance.... it's called intervention, not unlike filtering.

It's one thing to take down illegal sites, quite another to block sites
*and* keep the list of blocked sites secret.

Of course we could all cease to criticise (or ridicule - a Socratic test
for logic sanity), perhaps then all bugs would become programming
"character" ;-p

> Now Ada programmers on the other hand, they're fair game.
>
>

Ouch! :-D
Wotz not elegant about:-

with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_IO;
 
procedure Hello is
   HW : String := "Hello, world!";
begin
   for i in 1 .. HW'Length loop
      Put (HW (i));
   end loop;
end Hello;



    "When Roman engineers built a bridge, they had to stand under it
while the first legion marched across. If programmers today worked under
similar ground rules, they might well find themselves getting much more
interested in Ada !"    — Robert Dewar, President Ada Core Technologies.

    "Q: If anyone knows of a book that is the functional equivalent of
'The Idiot's Guide to C' for the Ada language, please send me the title
and author.
    A: Idiots don't use Ada. Idiots only use C or derivations."    —
David Weller.

Cheers

-- 
If millions of people believe a stupid thing, it's still a stupid thing