From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Apr 13 2005 - 18:43:22 BST
Mark, I bet however if you were de-bugging code worked on by a team of
(human) programmers other than yourself, two things would cross your
mind ... before fixing or requesting a fix.
I wonder why he / she did that ?
I wonder how to communicate my opinion, given I may have to work with
that person on the next phase of the project. I'm not talking about
"emotional" involvement - just the pragmatric problem of making the
solution work.
Travelling by air ? - as I said read Dawkins and my response about the
plane load of social anthropologists. It's more than logic, maths and
physics, it's social "science" too.
Ian
On 4/13/05, Mark Steven Heyman <MarkHeyman@infoproconsulting.com> wrote:
> Hi Ian,
>
> Last one from me on this digression.
>
>
> On 13 Apr 2005 at 7:17, ian glendinning wrote:
>
> Sorry Mark, nice try, but I just don't buy that, and I don't actually
> believe you would be that disingenuous.
>
> You actually said
> The outcome is ALL they care about. They wanna land that
> spacecraft, complete that circuit, build that bridge. What they
> don't care about is the literal truth of their assumptions. In
> fact, they care so little about the "truth" of the assumptions that,
> if the assumptions get in the way of orbiting the satellite, they
> will DROP the assumptions. This is pragmatism in action.
>
> It's your emphasis on "ALL"
>
> msh says:
> I think you're being a little over sensitive. It should be clear
> from the overall context of the argument that I am speaking about
> engineers in the process of solving engineering problems.
>
> Let me stick to something I know a little about. If I'm having
> problems debugging a program, stepping through the code using break
> points and evaluating variables, finding nothing unexpected, the
> next thing I think about is the various algorithms used in the design
> of the program. Maybe my models, my assumptions no matter how dear,
> my "recipes" for solving the problem are wrong. If so, I would
> change them, or scrap them altogether. I have no emotional
> attachment to them. In relation to the success of the program, my
> assumptions have to significance at all. This is true of every
> software engineer I've ever met. If it's not true for the vast
> majority people who design bridges and airplanes and cars, then I'm
> afriad my travel plans are in for severe alteration as well.
>
> Best,
> Mark
>
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