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From: geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,misc.jobs.misc
Subject: Re: American Programmer (What's a Ph.D. worth?)
Message-ID: <1713@desint.UUCP>
Date: 9 Apr 88 06:33:23 GMT
References: <555@psu-cs.UUCP> <1434@ur-tut.UUCP> <3415@bunker.UUCP> <3326@zeus.TEK.COM> <461@vsi.UUCP> <5775@bunny.UUCP> <2218@ttidca.TTI.COM> <5388@utah-cs.UUCP> <2000@optilink.UUCP> <998@daisy.UUCP>
Reply-To: geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning)
Organization: Interrupt Technology Corp., Manhattan Beach, CA
Lines: 26

I don't have a Ph.D. in windowing graphics;  in fact I don't have a Ph.D.
at all.  Ph.D. or not, I simply don't have the background to design a
major windowing system like X-Windows.  If I wanted to do so, I'd have
to hire somebody who *did* know, like perhaps a recent MIT Ph.D. grad.

On the other hand, those same friendly X-Windows folks recently released a
faster version of "make depend".  Only one teeny problem:  if you don't
have sources to cpp, the expression-evaluation routine (the one that handles
'#if <expression>' statements) reads, in its entirety:

	return (TRUE);

As has been said before, I'd rather have correct code than fast wrong code,
thanks anyway.

The moral:  if you have a "research-y" problem, get somebody with a
research background.  If you want professional code, though, hire
somebody with professional experience;  Ph.D. or not as appropriate.  The
average new Ph.D. graduate is a beginning programmer by professional
standards, just like the average new Bachelor's/Master's graduate.

(P.S.  Please don't get your hackles up, Bob;  it's just one of many
examples I could cite from many sources.  And yes, you'll be getting a
bug report on it.)
-- 
	Geoff Kuenning   geoff@ITcorp.com   {uunet,trwrb}!desint!geoff