Sweeping generalisation ahead. Beware ;-) It's because a lot of students don't learn that programming is about solving problems, and that design and aesthetics are a fundamental part of that. They learn how to use Java or C#. And mostly not even that, they learn how to string together varieties of API calls.
I have a vague feeling that there's a trend towards getting people to learn the minimum possible, so that the recompense for them doing work is minimal as well. But maybe it's always been like this, it's just that I'm starting to notice. The first time this struck me was when I was faced with some new line of self service check-in desks at an airport, which were staffed by the same number of people as a normal old-fashioned check-in desk. But because it was self service, none of the people staffing them, knew (i.e., never got taught) what to do when something did not go according to script. (They might have been told what to do, but they probably weren't actually taught. There's a difference.) On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Matthew Brand <[email protected]>wrote: > I have found programmers to be extremely hostile to J. I do not know > where that comes from. It is very strange. > > It is like sitting next to a man almost dying of thirst who has only a > moist sponge to suck on and you offer him a glass of water, but he > says, "no thanks, I will continue to suck on the sponge ... that is > what all the others did before they died of thirst, nobody else is > drinking water. Besides, I don't want to have to teach the next guy > how to drink water from a glass, he will already be trained to suck on > sponges." > > > 2009/8/21 Steven Taylor <[email protected]>: > > I had to share this. Using J I was recently able to solve an > n-dimensional > > mapping problem using a J array with a shape vector. The solution needed > 4 > > operations. Moving this back to the C / C# world the other developer > > couldn't see that it was a complete solution. Instead he is now busy > > recreating this in an inefficient tree, or as I suggested, if it must be > > this way, go ahead and use a hash map. > > "This isn't the way you do it in .net", he said. "You need references > and > > pointers", he continued. In his own words he wanted to go for a "zero > > intelligence solution"... but it seems to me more like, "zero > intelligence > > but how can I use all the fancy new toys to make it more complex". Oh, > and > > substitute "more complex" with "more maintainable" to > > be politically correct. > > > > --Steven > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
