....the dark side? would that be Python or C++? joel
-----Original Message----- From: matt stewart [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 06 June 2002 09:24 To: 'drieux'; cgi cgi-list Subject: RE: First and second rate programmers So much bitterness, i FEEL your pain - let it all out. Strike down your enemies, and the path to the dark side will be complete...... -----Original Message----- From: drieux [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 05 June 2002 18:32 To: cgi cgi-list Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: First and second rate programmers On Wednesday, June 5, 2002, at 08:40 , Ovid wrote: [..] > > First-rate mathematicians want to hang around first-rate > mathematicians. Second-rate mathematicians want to hang > around third-rate mathematicians. > > The reason for that is left as an exercise for the reader :) > > Cheers, > Curtis "Ovid" Poe First let us address the logic fault in your opening premise. The reason that many Perl Module Writers do not impose 'use strict' and/or 'use warning' - is precisely because of their obligation to 'backward compatibility' - and is done with a clear understanding that a core tenant of Perl Orthodoxy is that while we do not wish folks to rummage around in one's living room - we are not planning to put up trip mines to keep them out. Hence whining at any of the 'canonical' perl module writers for following Orthodoxy over 'good advice' - would be less than useful. Let us now move onto the problem of resolving 'ranking of programmers' as a concept in itself - and specifically SILLY in the perl environment to begin with.... Perchance the pinnacle of FOLLY in the cgi/mod_perl space - since this is a place where we have to deal with the fact that the 'standards committee' was functionally clueless to begin with when they ginned up the HTTP/HTML "standards" from the gitGo - and have compounded that folly by openly admitting their total cluelessness with XHTML - the 'we have no hope of formalization at all'! How exactly were we planning to rank programmer's who are great kernel hackers - but write, well, lame perl code? My old sense who is now in the bowels of VxWork based solutions for 802.11 work - had that coffee break moment that he had to actually 'work it' to understand some of the new perl tricks i use.... is he better than me or worse than me???? Or put the other way around - if the requirements are for this OS and to hit these performance numbers for the OLTP system - is it 'better' to dodge the whole 'portability' game - and get those XS's tied tightly to this OS's implementation of their unique wonders - for the speed... knowing that were we to change platforms we have some serious porting issues to address down the road??? But at least we have the basic perl inteface into the OLTP exposed in a reasonable way??? I can appreciate for the devotee's of the academic world - there is the clear moral imperative to having 'ranking and orders' - since without them how would one know if one had to write the valedictorian speach, or be the person working the 'back up strategy' incase the valedictorian takes a bullet.... But what about out here in the real world??? You know, where code gets generated by folks who are not worrying about the inter-departmental politics of how their pious posturing will be perceived one way or the other??? The 'dumb grunts' who merely have to get it to work. But clearly - if i felt that Perl were a specific field of mathematics, then I would of course find your argument so compelling - If I were worried at all about how I 'ranked' in the academic world to begin with. But what if 12 years in the industry helped me better understand how frighteningly silly that Degree in Computer Science really was to begin with? What if the process is really about seeing how others solve problems? Or finding interesting problems to solve for real people with real concerns about how to really do FOO???? What if the best thing to happen to the Shaolin Monasteries was that they were sacked and burned - and allowed them to find the same level of 'friar' { that old english phrase for 'free monk' } that helped them get in touch with their 'ronin' ways??? What if wandering the lanes with nothing more than a rice bowl was a great way to see the world and actually do good? Or would this be the wrong place to propose that if only Larry Wall had been a team player and been willing to do what needed to be done to make things in sed/awk more ellegant - and be a 'real first water' programmer rather than someone out to impress the 3rd tier wankers... But the same would also apply to the fact that those CERN wankers really should have been content with telnet and ftp - since clearly this whole skank with the lame, lame, lame HTTP protocol was merely there because those were so clearly lame types who were never going to be 'real programmers'.... But barring that, we so clearly agree that providing best practices and something like a standard is probably the best that we will be able to do - since most RealProgrammers[tm] will wind up doing things in ways we might not have expected - just like RealEndUsers[tm] tend to do with the code we wrote things we hadn't thought about.... God, if Only we had been First Water Wonders... Rather than merely Perl Coders.... ciao drieux --- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
