The problem is that physicists and mathematicians write the worst code I have ever seen in my entire life, and I've been programming for 30+ years. To those peo

The problem is that physicists and mathematicians write the worst code I have ever seen in my entire life, and I've been programming for 30+ years. To those people, everything is a single threaded, algorithmic problem, even when it is crystal clear to a formally trained programmer that using a well thought out data structure is the correct thing to do[1][2]. For example, they managed to break my Vertica database from delivering instant results (something it is explicitly designed for in "big data" scenarios) to running 18+ hours for a single SQL query. [1] Rule of Representation: Fold knowledge into data, so program logic can be stupid and robust. http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html#id2878263 http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html#id2878... [2] Rule of Robustness: Robustness is the child of transparency and simplicity. http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html#id2878145 http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html#id2878...