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- Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!hal.com!halaus!bobp
- From: bobp@hal.com (Bob Pendleton)
- Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
- Subject: Re: Something I didn't know
- Message-ID: <1992Dec17.145513.22553@hal.com>
- Date: 17 Dec 92 14:55:13 GMT
- References: <colin.32@physci.uct.ac.za>
- Organization: HaL Computer Systems, Inc.
- Lines: 40
-
- From article <colin.32@physci.uct.ac.za>, by colin@physci.uct.ac.za (COLIN HENDERSON):
-
- >>You sound just like one of those old line COBOL programmers I used to know,
- >>who never wrote a single line of Pascal, but who used to rail on about
- >>"structured languages are a bunch of nonsense and garbage." You never did it,
- >>you never saw it, you don't know anything about it. Period.
- >
- > Crap. If you were saying that about me, then you'd be correct, because I'm
- > a nuclear physicist (I like to think), not an electrochemist. So I'm a
- > programmer, but I don't write your language. Now Dieter's in the field, so
- > he's a Pascal (if you insist) programmer. You're saying: "you've never
- > written a programme to do x (which is a subset of the programmes Deiter's
- > expected to be have been able to write during his career) therefore any
- > comments you make about other people's attempts to write such things are
- > garbage."
-
- Be careful of arguing by analogy. Sad, to say, but what Jed said is,
- IMHO true of SOFTWARE people (I'm a software type, I've lived the
- battles Jeds implies.) But, software is not science. And there is
- little similarity between software development and scientific
- research.
-
- In other words, I think you are both making invalid arguments in this
- case.
-
- To say more than I should...
-
- I've written in both COBOL and Pascal. Last time I counted, about 16
- years ago, I'd programmed in something over 40 lanaguages. And the
- main language you use does affect how you see problems and what
- problems you can deal with.
-
- Bob P.
-
-
- --
- Bob Pendleton | As an engineer I hate to hear:
- bobp@hal.com | 1) You've earned an "I told you so."
- Speaking only for myself. | 2) Our customers don't do that.
- <<< Odin, after the well of Mimir. >>>
-