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> much of it is around a decade old now Has your doctor done any research/training about cholesterol in the last 10 years? I'm being snarky. But I think it's
by Swizec 11y ago
> much of it is around a decade old now
Has your doctor done any research/training about cholesterol in the last 10 years?
I'm being snarky. But I think it's important to consider the lifecycle of doctor careers. If you go to a liver or cholesterol specialist, then I'm sure they will be up to date with even findings from the last year. But I wouldn't expect a GP to be up to date on what every field within medicine has decided in the last decade after years and years of back-and-forth.
It's almost like asking a computer scientist to know both the difference between Angular and React, and how to rewrite COBOL mainframe code into Lisp. The actual job of a computer scientist is writing proofs in Coq and understanding the difference between lexical and context-free grammars.
- copperx 11y ago> The actual job of a computer scientist is writing proofs in Coq I was with you, but then this analogy went too far.
- scott_s 11y agoYou have a misinformed view of what a "computer scientist" is; I have never written a Coq proof, but I think my publication record buys me the label "computer scientist". (I recognize you were probably usually your specific examples as examples of a kind, but it's that kind which I think is misinformed. You probably think a "computer scientist" must necessarily be a theoretician, which is not the case.)
- Joof 11y agoI think you would be saved by rephrasing to indicate a particular computer scientist. People are getting overly pedantic.
- Swizec 11y agoIt's okay. That's how engineers and computer scientists work. The idea of "generalization" and "hyperbole" and "caricature" is often lost on us. This is primarily why my technical blogging has slowed down significantly. Writing for an audience that cares more about details than The Point (tm) is often annoying.
- copperx 11y agoActually, to nitpick on the details, it's both. We care about the details AND the point. The details sometimes take you to The Point. For example, I on your original post, I was trying to figure out if you meant "Computer Scientists are theoreticians" through the details. If you're not going to outright say something straight to the point, the details better be clear so that one can understand the implication.
- Swizec 11y agoThat's the thing, there were no details, it was a caricature. I've never heard of a person rewriting COBOL into Lisp in 2015. But I do personally know people who write Coq proofs and care about differences between strengths of various grammars. Maybe that's the problem - that part came too close to reality and triggered people's spidey senses.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Joof 11y agoI think you would be saved by rephrasing to indicate a particular computer scientist. People are getting overly pedantic.