🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <721862492@sheol.UUCP> throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:
>:: The fact that the language is conceptually
>:: stack based does *not* mean that it has *any* stack at runtime!
>: From: hrubin@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
>: Message-ID: <Bxr9vx.KBD@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
>: This is the case if the considerations for the optimizer were put in by
>: the compiler writer.  Computers are extremely fast sub-imbeciles.  If we
>: had a group of compiler people who would do their best to incorporate
>: considerations which users see in their optimizers, and produce their
>: optimizers so that these improvements can be quickly inserted, we may
>: get reasonable results.

>Yeah, right, it's all those lazy compiler people who just aren't doing
>their best.  Just like those lazy statisticians.  If we had a group of
>statisticians who would do their best to incorporate the statistical
>considerations which users actually see into their statistical models,
>and produce their models so that improvements can be quickly inserted,
>we might avoid all the misuses of statistics by poor, hard-working,
>long-suffering scientists in other fields.

As a statistician, I have absolutely no right to tell the client what
the model should be.  Nor do I have a catalog of models from which the
client can choose.  I WILL question the client on the assumptions, and
point out the consequences, and I MAY suggest that certain assumptions
can be dropped or generalized without affecting the analysis.

Now I may or may not be able to devise an algorithm to handle the data.
It may even be that there is nowhere near enough data.  It may be that
all the methods I know of attacking the problem require too much computing
to be useful.  BUT I WILL NOT TELL THE CLIENT WHAT THE MODEL SHOULD BE,
EVEN IF ASKED.  Any client who wants me to even work at this must make
me a co-investigator in the field.

>: The semantic model of the language can, however, greatly inhibit the
>: programmer.  

>True.  Just like all those nit-picky details they try to teach in
>statistics classes can inhibit a scientist's creativity with numbers. 

If my programming style will cause incorrect results to occur, it can
be criticized.  But, for example, nobody has claimed that the use of 
gotos WILL produce wrong answers.  I am quite willing to admit that
some of the methods I want to use in programming are dangerous.  So
is using a statistical method for an incorrect model, and this is 
done not just daily, and not even just hourly, but probably every
second.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)