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How could "everything else equal" include bloodletting? Of course the experience of using C++ is different than using C++ with knives, that's trivial, and I'm n
by hhm 19y ago
How could "everything else equal" include bloodletting? Of course the experience of using C++ is different than using C++ with knives, that's trivial, and I'm not saying that they are the same language or environment. My point is: the original argument makes the same trick, by making a modification to the language / environment that makes it very unusable... my extension of the argument to blood and knives it's just a way to show that the original argument is using exaggeration.
Everything else equal, the shorter program wins. Arc' breaks the "everything else equal" part of the argument very obviously, the same with the imaginary bloody machine.
- hhm 19y agoAnyway, in his article, PG doesn't actually restrict his own argument on that way. However I don't think he's being very strict in his presentation of the hypothesis, and while he could present it in a much more formal and precise (and theoretically correct way), I'm not sure that would make a very interesting essay. I imagine PG knew there might be restrictions to his argument, such as bloodletting and Arc' (or Arc' with bloodletting, imagine that!)... bah, who knows...
- dfranke 19y ago> the experience of using C++ is different than using C++ with knives Not by all that much.