Most programming is relatively simple and programmers have been programming the same thing over and over again.
Very many applications are to help people register something. In order to do so the programmer needs to put up some information on a screen and get some information from an operator of that screen. It really is not much difference who is doing the registrering nor what is being registered. Information is stored to a file and sometimes a program needs to read that information from the file. Occasionally some simple operations are done on the data and new files are created with the results. The input screens need to be very simple so pretty much anyone can understand what to do. Some of the time some money is exchanged so people can not register their own data. There are some examples of self service appearing in doing your own banking, buying groceries, checking in on airports etc. It is really amazing how the same operations are being programmed year after year, creating new screens, register the same data in new files, same moves between files etc. Somehow more and more bugs are introduced in those simple routines and a lot of people working with creating and fixing those bugs. 2009/8/21, Robert Raschke <[email protected]>: > 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 > -- Björn Helgason, Verkfræðingur Fugl&Fiskur ehf, Þerneyjarsundi 23, Hraunborgum Po Box 127,801 Selfoss , t-póst: [email protected] gsm: +3546985532 Landslags og skrúðgarðagerð, gröfuþjónusta http://groups.google.com/group/J-Programming Tæknikunnátta höndlar hið flókna, sköpunargáfa er meistari einfaldleikans góður kennari getur stigið á tær án þess að glansinn fari af skónum /|_ .-----------------------------------. ,' .\ / | Með léttri lund verður | ,--' _,' | Dagurinn í dag | / / | Enn betri en gærdagurinn | ( -. | `-----------------------------------' | ) | (\_ _/) (`-. '--.) (='.'=) ♖♘♗♕♔♙ `. )----' (")_(") ☃☠ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
