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Ah something I have personal experience with: I was taught bridge in fourth grade. I'm sure my teacher then would make a great programmer :P. That said, I'm no
by tikhonj 14y ago
Ah something I have personal experience with: I was taught bridge in fourth grade. I'm sure my teacher then would make a great programmer :P.
That said, I'm not sure I would use this analogy myself. "Imbecile" evokes the image of somebody either making bad decisions or not cooperating with the teacher. The computer does neither--in essence it makes no decisions and cooperates too much. After all, the problem with the computer is not that it does something you didn't tell it to or something you told it not to but that it does exactly what you told it to do.
Do you know how some people sometimes act passive-aggressively and take everything you say completely literally? It's annoying. That's what programming is like.(Except, of course, I usually don't find programming annoying.)
- bentcorner 14y ago"Go the store and pick up a jug of milk. If they have eggs, get a dozen." Programmer returns home with 13 jugs of milk
- groby_b 14y agoSeriously? An ancient programming joke, with a gratuitous off-by-one error?
- chimeracoder 14y agoIt's not gratuitous. One jug + one dozen = 13 jugs.
- mbatanian 14y agojugs = 1; if (have eggs) { jugs = 12; } Get a dozen, not a dozen more.
- T-hawk 14y agocart.addJugs(1); if (haveEggs) cart.addJugs(12); Now the cart has 13 jugs.
- wlesieutre 14y agoI'd say that "get a dozen" implies "jugs = 12" and not "jugs += 12". If you wanted to get a dozen more, you'd say "get a dozen more"
- pash 14y agoThis is why we don't program in English.
- fnordfnordfnord 14y agoAnd why it is so hard to write a good specification.
- AndrewDucker 14y ago"get a dozen" implies "jugs += 12"