Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!haven!umd5!cgs
From: cgs@umd5.umd.edu (Chris G. Sylvain)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: C compilers
Message-ID: <5512@umd5.umd.edu>
Date: 26 Oct 89 18:20:02 GMT
References: <271@wsl.UUCP> <1989Oct20.213641.982@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> <6205@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM> <3171@umiami.miami.edu> <14118@lanl.gov>
Reply-To: cgs@umd5.umd.edu (Chris G. Sylvain)
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 30

In article <14118@lanl.gov> wrs@falcon.UUCP (William Somsky) writes:
- In article <3171@umiami.miami.edu>
- SLORES@umiami.miami.edu (Stanislaw L. Olejniczak) writes:
- 
- -  Languages are tools, and no one (in their right mind)
- -  tries to unscrew a kitchen sink pipe with a screwdriver!
- 
- True, the optimal route would be to select and use the best language
- for the job at hand.  However, there are the additional constraints
- that you must have the language and be competent in that language.
-  [...]

  This may very well be true and good reasoning, but remember: You can't fight
human nature (very well).
  What I mean is best expressed by a curmudgeonly remark: Once a person learns
to use a hammer well, everything begins to look like a nail.
  There's a certain resistance to change that must be overcome. For the person
used to using a screwdriver, it will seem natural and appropriate that the
sink pipe appears to be a peculiar kind of screw. A person who knows better
may think the screwdriver person is out of their mind, but the screwdriver
person will insist their sanity is intact.
  Therefore, one will tend to use only what one knows, and will lack the wisdom
to perceive a more effective means of accomplishing the same goal. People have
the capacity to deny the existence of better ways simply because the other ways
are different.
-- 
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Rath: A sort of green pig
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