🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <252@arnor.UUCP> uri@arnor.UUCP (Uri Blumenthal) writes:

   Thanks, Tom. I can't help but to recommend you to read some books on CS, in
   my turn. It may enrich your lexicon with some "real" technical terms - so
   we'll not need to seek "technical" definition for UGLY. So be professional,
   please (I mean -even more (:-) - in CS, not in liberal arts...


terms like ugly, good, elegant and so on do not indicate that the
speaker is fuzzy minded even when applied to computer science.  rather
they indicate are reasonable appreciation of the role of heuristic
decisions in the design and evaluation process.  

only toy problems (such as are given to people in text-books and in
school) are really amenable to solutions purely on technical grounds.
in the real world of design and engineering there are an enormous
number of decisions that must be made long before the ultimate effect
of those decisions can be known.  in such situations, a good designer
has a philosophy of design to fall back on that allows them to make
decisions in what is essentially a vacuum of hard data.  an honest
designer will use qualitative, `non-technical' terms like ugly or
elegant to describe decisions made on this basis.  a dishonest or
naive designer will deny the applicability of such terms to their
field (not intended to be an ad hominem attack).

it is also important to realize that for design to be a fulfilling
life work for anybody but an automaton, you must allow some outlet for
artistic impulses.  creating a design that not only is functional, but
is a work of art in some sense greatly feeling of creating something
worthwhile.  


these `fuzzy' terms DO have an important place in all engineering and
scientific disciplines.  they function as guide-posts in the murk.