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- Path: goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU!not-for-mail
- From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU (Richard A. O'Keefe)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++
- Subject: Re: C/C++ knocks the crap out of Ada
- Date: 12 Feb 1996 17:18:22 +1100
- Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
- Message-ID: <4fmm3e$3rg@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU>
- References: <00001a73+00002504@msn.com> <4etcmm$lpd@nova.dimensional.com> <BYERLY_J.96Feb7170158@srm9.motsat.sat.mot.com> <4fc0ff$ipd@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU> <4fe52i$abc@fountain.mindlink.net>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au
- NNTP-Posting-User: ok
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-
- > What is P&B, please?
- Plauger and Brodie.
-
- > What is M&Q, please?
- Miller and Quillici (spelling? loaned the book to someone)
-
- > You might have to compete with Peter Seebach for the contract
- The wise don't compete; they co-operate.
-
- >>The number of articles posted doesn't indicate INTEREST but PROBLEMS.
-
- >>Articles posted to comp.lang.c can be divided into two major groups:
- >>cries for help and wrong answers. (That's why I stopped reading it
- >>and only read comp.lang.c.moderated now.)
-
- > Let us not forget the correct answers.
-
- I stopped reading comp.lang.c because the gold of correct answers
- were overwhelmed by the dross of incorrect answers. I continue reading
- comp.lang.ada because correct (and indeed insightful) answers still
- outnumber incorrect answers.
-
- > How long are all these kept? If one is kept longer than another,
- >the comparison is invalid.
-
- Of course. Since I was arguing that _any_ newsgroup-nose-counting is
- invalid, that didn't bother me. I believe that all the comp.lang.*
- newsgroups here are kept for the same period. Comp.lang.prolog articles
- seem to vanish before I have time to read them.
-
- If we only ever counted the _current_ popularity of things, we would never
- have switched from candles to oil lamps, from oil lamps to gas light, or
- from gas to electricity, and people now connected to mains electricity
- wouldn't have candles handy for storms.
-
- > There are lies, damned lies, and statistics!
-
- For what it's worth, in the original context, the word "statistics" meant
- "official government figures".
- --
- "conventional orthography is ... a near optimal system for the
- lexical representation of English words." Chomsky & Halle, S.P.E.
- Richard A. O'Keefe; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/~ok; RMIT Comp.Sci.
-