> I think Lindsay' answer is more along the lines of > 'if you ask a man with a hammer to solve a problem he > will use a hammer'. That is, Lindsay approaches things > from an academic point of view.
To quote many politicians "I refute this!!". In fact I don't approach programming from an academic point of view at all - I regard programming as being akin to painting a picture or composing music and, yes, theory is useful, but it isn't the driving force. The theory often helps after the fact, p[articularly with debugging - of course some of it (like state machines) is so thoroughly internalised that I do it without thinking now. I am a practical and pragmatic programmer - hell, I'd write in fortran if I thought it was the best thing to use (I draw the line at java though) > In my experience people who love mathematics write the most > unmaintainable code. The following link provides a good > example (ok, so he knows a thing or two about algorithms and > writing elegant books): http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/ Absolutely true (I don't think his books are that elegant either) L. - Automatic footer for [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] unsubscribe discuss To join the announcements list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe announce To receive a help file, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] help This list is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ If you have any problems or questions, please mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
