On 23/06/2007, at 6:59 PM, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:
Hi all,
Here's a really good (but rather long) blog post:
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/06/rich-programmer-food.html
Interesting. When I was studying computer science at Uni. (a long
time ago now), I remember that very few people took Compiler Theory.
It had a reputation for being extremely difficult - students
routinely came out with marks in the 30% to 40% range. I didn't take
it, largely because my time-tabling didn't allow it. I did Formal
Languages and Automata though.
I wonder how vital understanding how compilers work really is for the
majority of programmers. To draw an analogy: I'm studying a lot of
pure maths. I really like knowing how, for instance, the real number
system works and interacts with calculus. But I don't think it's
necessary to understand Dedekind cuts and how the rational number
system is extended to the real number system in order to find the
length of the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle with sides of
unit length and understand the answer you get.
Mark
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