Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tektronix!tekecs!frip!andrew
From: andrew@frip.gwd.tek.com (Andrew Klossner)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Professional Programmers (was: Seeing the future)
Message-ID: <10790@tekecs.TEK.COM>
Date: 24 Dec 88 07:29:36 GMT
References: <1984@eos.UUCP> <28200245@mcdurb> <321@taux02.UUCP> <32353@think.UUCP> <331@taux02.UUCP> <1992@ndsuvax.UUCP>
Sender: andrew@tekecs.TEK.COM
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville, Oregon
Lines: 12

>> [ stuff about converting cos(atan(x)) to 1/(1+x*x) and why this has
>>   not much to do with programmers as opposed to mathematicians     ]

> This is exactly the point I was trying to make - to a mathematician,
> these two expressions are identical and interchangeable ...

To an experienced programmer, these expressions are not
interchangeable; the first implies a runtime range check on the value
of x.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (uunet!tektronix!hammer!frip!andrew)    [UUCP]
                        (andrew%frip.gwd.tek.com@relay.cs.net)  [ARPA]