Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!munnari.oz.au!metro!extro!objtch From: objtch@extro.ucc.su.oz.au (Peter Goodall) Newsgroups: comp.object Subject: Re: Global program state. Message-ID: Date: 14 Jan 91 20:10:17 GMT References: <330@coatimundi.cs.arizona.edu> <2474@motcsd.csd.mot.com> <2784e0a8.6cc8@petunia.CalPoly.EDU> <2491@motcsd.csd.mot.com> <1991Jan14.124439.13145@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr> Sender: news@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU Organization: Sydney University Computing Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia Lines: 57 Nntp-Posting-Host: extro.ucc.su.oz.au adams@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr (Drew Adams) writes: >In article <2491@motcsd.csd.mot.com> lance@motcsd.csd.mot.com (lance.norskog) writes: >>jdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck) writes: >> >>Here's another meaty subject. Programmers are not taught to be engineers. >>Programmers are taught to be poets. An engineer are trained to design >>something over and over again before building it, to be sure it's >>absolutely correct. >What makes you think that poets don't design poems over and over >again, to be sure they are absolutely correct, before publishing them? Although it may not be obvious, I recently read a set of great lecture notes from a course at Stanford on Mathematical Writing given by Donald Knuth. He, or one of his guest lecturers quoted a poet or writer as saying words to the effect of: "you don't ever finish a poem, you just give up on it". Sounds a lot like software to me! >And with respect to other forms of literature, I believe that poets >are at least as concerned as other writers with finding `le mot >juste', and generally more so. >The criteria for determining the appropriateness of different words, >phrases and other constructions is different in these different >disciplines (programming, specifying, writing fiction, writing >non-fiction prose, writing poetry), but in all of them the search for >appropriate forms is important. >I also believe that it would be an error to assume that all of a >poet's criteria for determining such appropriateness are based on >subjective intuition. >Programs are not poems, but I'm not so sure that training in >critically reading and writing poetry would hinder, rather than help, >a programmer to develop good programming skills. Everyone get a copy of Knuth's Course notes. The document is Mathematical Writing by D.E. Knuth, T. Larrabee, and P.M. Roberts The course is/was CS 209. We found a copy in Sydney University library. >-- >Drew ADAMS: adams@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr Tel. +33 (1) 64.49.11.54 > ALCATEL ALSTHOM Recherche, Route de Nozay, 91460 MARCOUSSIS, FRANCE ---------------------------- Peter Goodall Smalltalk Systems Consultant ObjecTech P/L 162 Burns Bay Rd, LANE COVE , NSW, AUSTRALIA objtch@extro.ucc.su.oz.au