From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,af40e09e753872c X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,f292779560fb8442 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,30e368bdb3310fe5 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: f8c65,30e368bdb3310fe5 X-Google-Attributes: gidf8c65,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,30e368bdb3310fe5 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 10db24,30e368bdb3310fe5 X-Google-Attributes: gid10db24,public X-Google-Thread: 1008e3,30e368bdb3310fe5 X-Google-Attributes: gid1008e3,public From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) Subject: Re: Hungarian notation Date: 1996/06/07 Message-ID: <4p8k69$mu6@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 158908111 references: <31999F43.41C67EA6@scn.de> <319D2278.3F9A@netonecom.net> <4nr50r$jo2@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> <4ns02o$ep3@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU> <4o07o9$rfu@seagoon.newcastle.edu.au> <4o1vo3$p2a@news1.ni.net> <4p6mor$qbb@nntp.seflin.lib.fl.us> organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.modula3,comp.lang.modula2,comp.edu,comp.lang.eiffel nntp-posting-user: ok Date: 1996-06-07T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: z007400b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us (Ralph Silverman) writes: > why not major in > hegelian metaphysics > or > creative writing (modern poetry) For many students, the literally correct answer is "because a major in creative writing is not a meal ticket, but a major in computing is." Dijkstra once wrote that the two prerequisites for becoming a good programmer were - a propensity (my word, not his) for mathematics - mastery of ones native language. I am not the only person in this department who wishes that more of our students had attained at least "advanced apprentice" English skills. A good creative writing course might work wonders, especially one of those ones where you are taught how to _rewrite_. > is not one of the great things about programming > that it has the > objective component > of making thing which > ACTUALLY WORK!!! There is no branch of technology in which technical writing skills are not important. Once you have built something, you have to tell other people how to operate and maintain it. Making something that actually works is not the *end* of computing, it's the *beginning*. > computer programmers, i guess, > PROGRAM COMPUTERS This is, alas, painfully true. There are too perishing many programmers. What we need is more software engineers: people who can not only produce code that works but explain it so well that it keeps *on* working as the necessary adaptive changes are made. Show me someone who things that computing is all about programming, and I'll show you someone whose test plans aren't nearly good enough. -- Fifty years of programming language research, and we end up with C++ ??? Richard A. O'Keefe; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/~ok; RMIT Comp.Sci.