Dear computing comrades, Today, i'd like to show you a piece of literature written by a eminent mathematician Edsger W Dijkstra.
Here's 2 interesting quote from his letter: “The prevaling attitude was reflected in the creation of two literary figures — admittedly of rather poor literature, but nevertheless of great paralyzing power —, viz. “the average programmer” and “the casual user”. Up to these days, academic research in programming methodology has been supposed to respect the severe intellectual limitations of these fictitious morons: consequently any proposal that required any further education of the programming person was out.” “... On the other hand we should be glad that the gospel of design by derivation rather by trial and error is still preached.” I happened to read it today. And, i think in your busy schedule of checking out slashdot and blogging and driveling with your excitement and concerns about current fashions and trends with your fellow peers and factions; It is good once in a while to read something unfashionable and not for-dummies. This letter of EWD is about 16 pages. Is somewhat a quaint rant. The first half i find interesting but without much sympathy, perhaps because the author is mostly talking about the situation in the mid 1990s, of which, i'm unfamiliar and too early a period to touch me personally. But the latter part of the letter, i find much empathy and concurrence. In particular, his remarks related to the formal methods. (for you math illiterates out there: the “formal” here does not mean the opposite of “informal”, as in “formal dress” vs “informal dress”. Rather, “formal” here means “mathematical reasoning by symbol manipulation; the ‘FORM’ in math FORMulas”. (for you mathematicians out there: the root of the word “formal” as in “formal dress” and “formalism”, actually are the same. They both refers to “form” as in a empty shell, appearance.)) (So, when you “dress up formally” to attend your friend's wedding or death ceremony, it literally means you are putting on a appearance.) Now, without further ado, the article is at: “Under the spell of Leibniz's dream” (2000) By Edsger W Dijkstra http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd12xx/EWD1298.PDF Xah [EMAIL PROTECTED] ∑ http://xahlee.org/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
