[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Mon, Feb 11, 2008 at 09:45:02PM -0800, Darren New wrote:
If every person who wrote a chess program understood completely how to
play chess, we wouldn't have systems like Big Blue. If every person who
wrote a program that generates music understood completely everything
about generating music, we wouldn't need composers any more.
Are you equating simply *attempting* to write software
with successfully writing 100% correct fully functional software?
No. I'm saying that there are virtually no chess programs that can beat
good chess players, even those chess players who never wrote a program.
Who understands better how to play chess: The person who always wins but
did not "program it", or the person who wrote the software that plays
chess but loses? It was a simple counter-example, is all, to a universal
statement.
A better example would be, "If you wrote a calculator program that always gave
the right answer would that mean you completely understand the *rules* of
arithmetic?" And the answer would be yes.
For sufficiently trivial problems, this is true. But who understands the
rules better? The person who wrote the calculator program, or the people
who invented modern arithmetic? How many programmers do you think can
write a program to add two numbers? How many of those same programmers
do you think could prove that 2's compliment arithmetic works?
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
On what day did God create the body thetans?
--
[email protected]
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