🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov3.183725.11681@oracle.us.oracle.com> akao@.com (Adam Kao) writes:
 
stuff deleted....


:
:Herman, for a programmer, the program isn't some figure, or illustration,
:or formula which can be ignored after sufficiently understanding the text.
:_The_program_is_the_product_.  I'm very glad that you finally made an
:attempt to give us real code, but what you gave us _is_not_a_program_.
 
I think all of Herman's detractors are missing the point.

For Herman, the program IS NOT the product.

The result of the computation is.
 
Herman is not a programmer. He is a mathematician. Stop trying to pretend that
his objectives are the same as yours. His objective is "speed", and he doesn't
give a hoot about portability, readability, or any of the other programming
style criteria you guys keep harping about.


:I suspect that, to you, the program itself just isn't that important,
 
Bingo!

:so you didn't spend much time on it.  Try to understand that, for us,
 
I disagree. He probably spent a LOT of time on it. But he was spending
time on figuring out the fastest way to do something and the efficiency
of his code on a particular machine. 

:the program is the first thing we look at, often the _only_ thing,
 
Ah. Wonderful. So you never bother checking on whether the algorithm
itself is well suited to your architecture.

:and provides the bulk of our understanding.  For us, a program is
 
This is fine, but not for numerically intensive, and mathematically
deep algorithms. How does checking the code tell you if it is the most
efficient method for yor machine?

 
I would call what everyone is criticizing Herman for:

An overemphasis on form and structure, rather than content.

--
Bob Silverman
These are my opinions and not MITRE's.
Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730
"You can lead a horse's ass to knowledge, but you can't make him think"