Re: Ada Job Opportunity - Repost

[eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)]

In article <MIKEH.95Feb28082303@dev1.ssd.fsi.com> mikeh@ssd.fsi.com (Michael Hann) writes:

 > Colin James has a point . . . most engineers couldn't write their
 > way out of a paper bag.  On the other hand, most soft subject
 > people are sadly lacking in fundamental technical knowledge.

   This canard against engineers has, in my experience no basis in
fact.  A much better dividing line between C. P. Snow's two cultures
is that members of one culture know mathematics, and members of the
other do not.  (I could say members of the other culture believe in
Astrology, but that is a little too nasty.)

   When I was a member of the Savoyards (a group in Philadelphia
devoted to producing the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan) the
closest we came to a "non-technical" member was my bridge partner who
was the head of an insurance company.  (Robert Dewar also has lots of
experience in this area, I'm sure he would be willing to comment.)
Many of my musician friends--some met well outside of the computer
business--kept bread in their mouths as computer programmers, the two
talents seem to run together.

   So I just can't believe that it is just coincidence, or the way I
pick my friends.  When I make a literary or artistic allusion, I
expect most of my engineer friends and some of the liberal arts majors
to get it.

    I can claim to be a bystander in the battle, my undergaduate
degree is officially in the most mathematical of the social
sciences--Economics.   But I would be lying--Mathematics is one of the
Liberal Arts in theory, but very far from there in practice, and I
have a masters in Operations Research and Statistics--from a
Management School.  (There I've done it!  My dark, dirty secrets
revealed not only do I have a B.A. not a B.S., but I have a Masters
from a B-school. ;-)

    Okay here is a challenge--I'll disqualify myself.  Name the seven
liberal arts--the trivium and the quadrivium.  Identify yourself as a
math/science/engineering geek\b\b\b\bmajor or a liberal arts or social
sciences type.  Extra points for identifing the cathedral that depicts
them.  We'll see how people sort themselves out.

--

					Robert I. Eachus

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