Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!dino!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!aries!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: JLG's flogging of horses (was Re: Relationship between C and C++)
Message-ID: <1990Apr10.151040.26800@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 10 Apr 90 15:10:40 GMT
References: <9765@yunexus.UUCP> <14320@lambda.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Reply-To: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald)
Organization: School of Chemical Sciences, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Lines: 26

In article <14320@lambda.UUCP> jlg@lambda.UUCP (Jim Giles) writes:
>From article <9765@yunexus.UUCP>, by oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit):
>> [...]
>>>The _other_ problem here, of course, is that sophisticated users
>>>often don't care (at least, not at the time) about portability.
>> You are wrong.
>
>Oh?  You have done a careful survey of large numbers of sophisticated users
>to back up this claim?  I have worked in computing for over 18 years now
>and my job never carries me far from the consulting end of the field.
>I can tell you that sophisticated users tend to be 'full contact' programmers.
>That is, on a given machine they try to get the last ounce of performance
>out of the hardware.  If they have to use non-portable features to do so,
>they do.
>
>J. Giles


I seldom enter this silly discussion - but this has my political
hackles up. Mr. Giles is right here. Mr. Yigit has his terminology wrong -
the people he refers to as "sophisticated" are better described as
"politically correct" members of the elite CS fraternity, those
inhabiting ivory towers.


Doug McDonald