Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!vax5!btcx
From: btcx@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: DO loops, anyone?
Message-ID: <18192@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU>
Date: 22 Mar 89 02:10:51 GMT
References: <28506@sgi.SGI.COM> <1320@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu>
 <1913@devsys.oakhill.UUCP>
Sender: news@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Reply-To: btcx@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (Brian T Carcich)
Organization: Space Sciences, Cornell University
Lines: 49

In article <1913@devsys.oakhill.UUCP> steve@oakhill.UUCP (steve) writes:
>
>I hold a patent in AI.  The system I wrote was in FORTRAN (for constraints
>I won't get into).  When presenting a paper on it I would always get
>the question (from the [person] that seems to always sit in the forth row)
>"What language did you use, C or LISP".  When I replied FORTRAN, there
>were scoffs in the audience.  I would unabashedly point out that the
>langauge in no way took away from the concept, and while other people
>had their AI systems still on the drawing board in LISP or C, mine was
>completed working and part of a marketed system.

Where do these fourth-row-people come from?  Do you suppose it's a secret 
organization or something?

I was at a simulation conference a few years ago, and one of the sessions
was on laser disks.  Now the paper being presented was about a
nice system developed to save various scenarios and put an 
operator-in-training through his paces without human supervision.  It was 
all there, from different events to automatic review of what the system 
"felt" the trainee did not understand.  Sure enough, someone asked 
"What language did you write the simulation in?"  Immediately my ears 
pricked up as I sensed I was in the presence of a True Believer In 
Structured Programming Languages (which is to say, a True Believer in 
Non-existent Entities). "Fortran", came the unashamed reply.  The TBISPL/NE
revealed his true colors with his next question:  "Why Fortran?"  To which
I was overjoyed to hear the presenter respond "Because we're engineers." 

Why am I telling this story for the 100th time?

  (1)  I love it.  (I'm an engineer.)
  (2)  It emphasizes Steve's point above (that apparently cannot be 
       over-emphasized) that it is not the tools, but the USE of the tools
       that should be our focus.  The recurring theme in comp.sw-eng is 
       programmer discipline; they're even telling the managers that it's
       their fault if programmer discipline is not an enforced policy. 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
How can you tell when an engineer has been using your terminal?
By the White-Out on the screen.  (White-Out = Liquid Paper)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I once added "Engineers are great" as a (joke) signature to a posting, and
got ripped brilliantly and humourously by someone who had worked with some
engineers and found they usually (mistakenly) think themselves to be the
best hotshot programmers in town.  Mea culpa!  But, as in Steve's example
above, at least my application is on the street and not the drawing board. 

(BTW, this is not intended as an excuse for poor programming practices
 nor as a put down of any language, rather as a response to those who focus 
 on tools instead of techniques.)