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From: nad@cl.cam.ac.uk (Neil Dodgson)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Foley and van Dam book II
Message-ID: <1990Jul21.083828.17248@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Date: 21 Jul 90 08:38:28 GMT
References: <25553@mimsy.umd.edu> <3777@csccat.UUCP> <45359@brunix.UUCP>
Reply-To: nad@cl.cam.ac.uk (Neil Dodgson)
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK
Lines: 44

In article <45359@brunix.UUCP> jfh@cs.brown.edu (John Forbes Hughes) writes:
>In article <3777@csccat.UUCP> larry@csccat.UUCP (Larry Spence) writes:
>>In article <25553@mimsy.umd.edu> rmr@tove.cs.umd.edu (Randy M. Rohrer) writes:
>>A memorable specification:
>>
>>   (on polygon interior conventions)
>>   "Another rule is the nonexterior rule... if we think of the curve
>>    as a fence, the interior is the region in which animals can be 
>>    penned up." [p. 965]
>>
>>I'm having a little trouble implementing from their description %> ...
>
>I don't mean to sound too defensive here, but I was the guy who wrote that
>particular sentence. I'm not very proud of it,...

Hey, I would be (proud of it that is).  IMHO if you can explain a
difficult concept simply so that anyone (who's likely to read the
book) can understand it then you're doing well.

The point that a simple, direct, informal style tends to make your
descriptions much clearer than a formal scientific style was very well
illustrated by George Orwell in his essay "Politics and the English
Language" [1946].  He `translates' the following (well-known) verse
from Ecclesiastes 9:11 into modern (scientific) English:

The original:
  "I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not always to
   the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the
   wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to
   men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all."

The translation:
  "Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the 
   conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities 
   exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity,
   but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must
   invariably be taken into account."

[I took this example from the introduction to J.R. Krebs and N.B.
Davies "An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology" (ISBN 0-632-01498-9,
in case any of you want to rush out and buy it :-)]

Neil Dodgson
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