Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!leah!rpi!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!cline From: cline@suntan.ece.clarkson.edu (Marshall Cline) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: What's a C expert? Summary: Knowing facts can't make someone an expert Keywords: philosophy, knowledge based applications, smart wet-ware Message-ID: Date: 16 Jun 89 21:08:13 GMT References: <12214@well.UUCP> <2014@dataio.Data-IO.COM> Sender: news@sun.soe.clarkson.edu Reply-To: cline@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Marshall Cline) Distribution: all Organization: Clarkson University, Postdam NY Lines: 30 In-reply-to: bright@Data-IO.COM's message of 16 Jun 89 19:04:37 GMT In article <2014@dataio.Data-IO.COM> bright@Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright) writes: >In article <12214@well.UUCP> tmh@well.UUCP (Todd M. Hoff) writes: >>After a few lengthy arguments nobody could satisfactorly answer >>this question: What do you need to know to be an expert C programmer? >You need to be able to determine what the programs do that won the >Obfuscated C Code Contest *without* using a compiler! :-) :-) >Note that I separate the concepts of knowledge and wisdom here, you >asked about knowledge! Walter's comment is insightful: let's realize the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Indeed, having knowledge is probably a necessary condition for being an expert, but no amount of knowledge can make one an expert unless the alleged expert can judge/discern between subtle distinctions, etc. Consider a large database containing all the valid `C' constructs and idioms. It might be argued that the database contains lots of `knowledge', but it (the database) clearly is NOT an `expert'. Thus the original poster asked the wrong question. It's not what you need to know, since NO volume of knowledge can make one an expert. [But this discussion probably belongs in "comp.lang.c.philosophy" :-)] Marshall -- ________________________________________________________________ Marshall P. Cline ARPA: cline@sun.soe.clarkson.edu ECE Department UseNet: uunet!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!cline Clarkson University BitNet: BH0W@CLUTX Potsdam, NY 13676 AT&T: (315) 268-6591