5 ms·

Why is speed not important? Edit: How is speed not important?

by Husafan 18y ago

pg 18y ago
Why isn't the shirt I'm wearing blue?
- hhm 18y ago
  Well you can always connect a false statement to another simpler false statement to make your idea easier to understand. Or you can show how if something were true, it would contradict with some obvious truth, and so on. This is not a cause, but it helps for your argument. Otherwise, we could all go pointing random ideas as false, anyway we haven't to explain why they are false, couldn't we? Edit: also, maybe you don't like blue after all :)
  - pg 18y ago
    The point is, there's never an explanation for why something isn't true.
    - hhm 18y ago
      I don't agree. You can explain why something is true, right? (at least in some cases, not for all cases, you know, Gödel and all that). In such cases you can actually explain, it follows that if X is true, !X isn't true, and you have an obvious explaination for that. Example: why is my shirt red? Because I only have red shirts on my house. Why isn't my shirt blue? Please refer to the previous explaination of why it's red, then it follows it can't be at the same time red and blue, etc etc. And it's great it's like this, because otherwise we could be saying a lot of random predicates are false and no one could argue with us. So I think asking someone "why x is false" isn't illogical, after all if there is a reason to say "x is false", surely there is a way to prove it's false indeed. Edit: part of the problem with this discussion, of course, is that there is not a fixed meaning for "why". "Why" is a very ambiguous question, it doesn't specify whether we want to know the intention, the proof, the cause, etc. And even, what is a cause? If you are talking about historic events indeed you can't explain why X didn't happen, but from the same pov you couldn't ever explain why Y did happen at all, if you see history as something deterministic & linear. So whether you're right or wrong actually depends on what you see on the word why...
      - byrneseyeview 18y ago
        I don't understand this argument. When someone says "Why don't you... X?" are you going to enumerate all the things you'd rather do than X, and then explain that the effort involved in doing those things precludes X? Or are you just going to say "That's a stupid question. Tell me why I should."
        hhm 18y ago
        Well, enumerating a finite list of things is not something you wouldn't do in a math proof. Now if I say: X="primes are all multiples of three", "why isn't X true?", there are many obvious answers to that. For starters, because there's at least an element of primes (7), that is not a multiple of three. That should be enough to disprove: "there's never an explanation for why something isn't true", and that's the point. I would have preferred a simple explaination of why PG thinks X isn't true than the assertion that such a thing can't be explained (actually I suspect he was being humourous or something like that, obviously he has to have a reason to think like he thinks). Also, you can always reply: "because I don't want to!", or "because I have other things to do", or "because I don't see a reason to" (it's like asking "why should I..?"), to "why don't you ... X?" :)
      - Alex3917 18y ago
        My thesis for this essay is that the Great Gatsby is not an allegory for animal beastiality. First of all, Gatsby contains no animal characters. Because of this, the likelihood that F. Scott Fitzgerald's work was a veiled reference to man-on-animal love is very low. Second, there is no evidence than any of the characters are attracted to animals. While Gatsby does have an attraction to Daisy, there is nothing in the text to indicate that her character metaphorically embodies animalistic qualities. In conclusion, there is no possible way that the Great Gatsby represents an attempt to introduce zoophilia to mainstream American society. After examining all of the evidence one can clearly see that this simply cannot be the case.
        hugh 18y ago
        I disagree. First of all, Gatsby contains no animal characters. The Great Gatsby contains two dogs and a cat. While none are given names, one of the dogs (an Airedale bought by Myrtle Wilson) appears several times and has some identifiable characteristics. Second, there is no evidence than any of the characters are attracted to animals. In fact, it contains this scene: "She looked at me and laughed pointlessly. Then she flounced over to the dog, kissed it with ecstasy and swept into the kitchen, implying that a dozen chefs awaited her orders there." In conclusion, although bestiality is not one of the novel's primary themes, there is evidence that at least one character makes out with a dog at some point. Please note: the only reason I have time to go and grep -iw gatsby.txt for "dog" is that I'm waiting for the program I'm writing to finish executing. This is why speed is important in exploratory programming.
  - radu_floricica 18y ago
    Try to honestly answer the question: "Why is the color of the programmer's shirt not important for his productivity?" It's hard, because it _could_ be. The only way to properly answer is to take a random sample of programmers and show that there is no statistical difference. This doesn't say anything about weather speed is important or not, of course. But it does give an idea that statistics (or practical experience) might be involved. Just remember, random sample = good, anecdotal evidence = bad.
    - hhm 18y ago
      I don't see how this relates to the original argument. It doesn't help explain you can or can't say why something isn't true. And anyway, it wouldn't be easier to respond "why is the color of the programmer's shirt important ...?" than its negation.
      - radu_floricica 18y ago
        I think that's kindof the point... it's easier to ask the affirmative form then the negative, ie it's easier to prove then disprove. Anyways, this meta-discussion has gone long enough anyways. I'm having too hard a time following it. Can't we go back arc and exploratory languages, please? :)
        hhm 18y ago
        You are right, we are very off topic now :) back to Arc.
tokipin 18y ago
the article itself points out Python isn't that fast either i can only see speed being an issue in these heavy data type things, for which you should probably be using an APL language (as they are quite exploratory-friendly -- and fast -- for these types of problems) i've been using Arc for a while and the speed has never been an issue. most of your time developing a program is spent writing it, not watching it run. about the only thing that annoys me is that it currently requires mzscheme
- jimbokun 18y ago
  "most of your time developing a program is spent writing it, not watching it run." This totally depends on the kind of program you are writing. I just completed a class on Information Retrieval, the exact same kind of tasks and algorithms in the Collecting Intelligence books. One assignment, I spent most of the time allocated trying to get the program reasonably fast enough in Python to finish in less than a day. If a mistake was not apparent until the program had run for a couple of hours, it totally killed all of the exploratory programming advantages that Python has. I finally gave up and rewrote the entire thing in Java a day before the assignment was due. I got my algorithm to converge in under 2 hours (had left the Python version running much longer with than this with no converging in sight), and was able to get some decent results to turn in. Maybe I'm just greedy. I want it all. Speed, exploratory programming, lots of libraries. Common Lisp offers the first two, the last, not so much. Java offers 1 and 3, Python 2 and 3. My next languages to learn are Scala and/or Clojure. Potentially the speed and libraries of Java, with many of the features that make Common Lisp and Python great at exploratory programming. I do not see Arc on a path that will give it all 3 of these attributes in the foreseeable future.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
bOR_ 18y ago
There is people working on having an arc-2-c translation, which I guess would bring the speed you are craving for ;) See http://arclanguage.org/item?id=6605 http://arclanguage.org/item?id=6605

Why is speed not important? Edit: How is speed not important?

by Husafan 18y ago

Why is speed not important? Edit: How is speed not important?

pg 18y ago

Why isn't the shirt I'm wearing blue?

hhm 18y ago
Well you can always connect a false statement to another simpler false statement to make your idea easier to understand. Or you can show how if something were true, it would contradict with some obvious truth, and so on. This is not a cause, but it helps for your argument. Otherwise, we could all go pointing random ideas as false, anyway we haven't to explain why they are false, couldn't we? Edit: also, maybe you don't like blue after all :)
- pg 18y ago
  The point is, there's never an explanation for why something isn't true.
  - hhm 18y ago
    I don't agree. You can explain why something is true, right? (at least in some cases, not for all cases, you know, Gödel and all that). In such cases you can actually explain, it follows that if X is true, !X isn't true, and you have an obvious explaination for that. Example: why is my shirt red? Because I only have red shirts on my house. Why isn't my shirt blue? Please refer to the previous explaination of why it's red, then it follows it can't be at the same time red and blue, etc etc. And it's great it's like this, because otherwise we could be saying a lot of random predicates are false and no one could argue with us. So I think asking someone "why x is false" isn't illogical, after all if there is a reason to say "x is false", surely there is a way to prove it's false indeed. Edit: part of the problem with this discussion, of course, is that there is not a fixed meaning for "why". "Why" is a very ambiguous question, it doesn't specify whether we want to know the intention, the proof, the cause, etc. And even, what is a cause? If you are talking about historic events indeed you can't explain why X didn't happen, but from the same pov you couldn't ever explain why Y did happen at all, if you see history as something deterministic & linear. So whether you're right or wrong actually depends on what you see on the word why...
    - byrneseyeview 18y ago
      I don't understand this argument. When someone says "Why don't you... X?" are you going to enumerate all the things you'd rather do than X, and then explain that the effort involved in doing those things precludes X? Or are you just going to say "That's a stupid question. Tell me why I should."
      - hhm 18y ago
        Well, enumerating a finite list of things is not something you wouldn't do in a math proof. Now if I say: X="primes are all multiples of three", "why isn't X true?", there are many obvious answers to that. For starters, because there's at least an element of primes (7), that is not a multiple of three. That should be enough to disprove: "there's never an explanation for why something isn't true", and that's the point. I would have preferred a simple explaination of why PG thinks X isn't true than the assertion that such a thing can't be explained (actually I suspect he was being humourous or something like that, obviously he has to have a reason to think like he thinks). Also, you can always reply: "because I don't want to!", or "because I have other things to do", or "because I don't see a reason to" (it's like asking "why should I..?"), to "why don't you ... X?" :)
    - Alex3917 18y ago
      My thesis for this essay is that the Great Gatsby is not an allegory for animal beastiality. First of all, Gatsby contains no animal characters. Because of this, the likelihood that F. Scott Fitzgerald's work was a veiled reference to man-on-animal love is very low. Second, there is no evidence than any of the characters are attracted to animals. While Gatsby does have an attraction to Daisy, there is nothing in the text to indicate that her character metaphorically embodies animalistic qualities. In conclusion, there is no possible way that the Great Gatsby represents an attempt to introduce zoophilia to mainstream American society. After examining all of the evidence one can clearly see that this simply cannot be the case.
      - hugh 18y ago
        I disagree. First of all, Gatsby contains no animal characters. The Great Gatsby contains two dogs and a cat. While none are given names, one of the dogs (an Airedale bought by Myrtle Wilson) appears several times and has some identifiable characteristics. Second, there is no evidence than any of the characters are attracted to animals. In fact, it contains this scene: "She looked at me and laughed pointlessly. Then she flounced over to the dog, kissed it with ecstasy and swept into the kitchen, implying that a dozen chefs awaited her orders there." In conclusion, although bestiality is not one of the novel's primary themes, there is evidence that at least one character makes out with a dog at some point. Please note: the only reason I have time to go and grep -iw gatsby.txt for "dog" is that I'm waiting for the program I'm writing to finish executing. This is why speed is important in exploratory programming.
- radu_floricica 18y ago
  Try to honestly answer the question: "Why is the color of the programmer's shirt not important for his productivity?" It's hard, because it _could_ be. The only way to properly answer is to take a random sample of programmers and show that there is no statistical difference. This doesn't say anything about weather speed is important or not, of course. But it does give an idea that statistics (or practical experience) might be involved. Just remember, random sample = good, anecdotal evidence = bad.
  - hhm 18y ago
    I don't see how this relates to the original argument. It doesn't help explain you can or can't say why something isn't true. And anyway, it wouldn't be easier to respond "why is the color of the programmer's shirt important ...?" than its negation.
    - radu_floricica 18y ago
      I think that's kindof the point... it's easier to ask the affirmative form then the negative, ie it's easier to prove then disprove. Anyways, this meta-discussion has gone long enough anyways. I'm having too hard a time following it. Can't we go back arc and exploratory languages, please? :)
      - hhm 18y ago
        You are right, we are very off topic now :) back to Arc.

tokipin 18y ago

the article itself points out Python isn't that fast either i can only see speed being an issue in these heavy data type things, for which you should probably be using an APL language (as they are quite exploratory-friendly -- and fast -- for these types of problems) i've been using Arc for a while and the speed has never been an issue. most of your time developing a program is spent writing it, not watching it run. about the only thing that annoys me is that it currently requires mzscheme

jimbokun 18y ago
"most of your time developing a program is spent writing it, not watching it run." This totally depends on the kind of program you are writing. I just completed a class on Information Retrieval, the exact same kind of tasks and algorithms in the Collecting Intelligence books. One assignment, I spent most of the time allocated trying to get the program reasonably fast enough in Python to finish in less than a day. If a mistake was not apparent until the program had run for a couple of hours, it totally killed all of the exploratory programming advantages that Python has. I finally gave up and rewrote the entire thing in Java a day before the assignment was due. I got my algorithm to converge in under 2 hours (had left the Python version running much longer with than this with no converging in sight), and was able to get some decent results to turn in. Maybe I'm just greedy. I want it all. Speed, exploratory programming, lots of libraries. Common Lisp offers the first two, the last, not so much. Java offers 1 and 3, Python 2 and 3. My next languages to learn are Scala and/or Clojure. Potentially the speed and libraries of Java, with many of the features that make Common Lisp and Python great at exploratory programming. I do not see Arc on a path that will give it all 3 of these attributes in the foreseeable future.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

bOR_ 18y ago

There is people working on having an arc-2-c translation, which I guess would bring the speed you are craving for ;) See http://arclanguage.org/item?id=6605 http://arclanguage.org/item?id=6605