On Wednesday, June 5, 2002, at 08:40 , Ovid wrote:
[..]
>
> First-rate mathematicians want to hang around first-rate
> mathematicians. Second-rate mathematicians want to hang
> around third-rate mathematicians.
>
> The reason for that is left as an exercise for the reader :)
>
> Cheers,
> Curtis "Ovid" Poe
First let us address the logic fault in your opening premise.
The reason that many Perl Module Writers do not impose 'use strict'
and/or 'use warning' - is precisely because of their obligation to
'backward compatibility' - and is done with a clear understanding
that a core tenant of Perl Orthodoxy is that while we do not wish
folks to rummage around in one's living room - we are not planning
to put up trip mines to keep them out.
Hence whining at any of the 'canonical' perl module writers for
following Orthodoxy over 'good advice' - would be less than useful.
Let us now move onto the problem of resolving 'ranking of programmers'
as a concept in itself - and specifically SILLY in the perl environment
to begin with.... Perchance the pinnacle of FOLLY in the cgi/mod_perl
space - since this is a place where we have to deal with the fact that
the 'standards committee' was functionally clueless to begin with
when they ginned up the HTTP/HTML "standards" from the gitGo - and have
compounded that folly by openly admitting their total cluelessness
with XHTML - the 'we have no hope of formalization at all'!
How exactly were we planning to rank programmer's who are great
kernel hackers - but write, well, lame perl code? My old sense
who is now in the bowels of VxWork based solutions for 802.11
work - had that coffee break moment that he had to actually 'work it'
to understand some of the new perl tricks i use.... is he better than
me or worse than me????
Or put the other way around - if the requirements are for this OS
and to hit these performance numbers for the OLTP system - is it 'better'
to dodge the whole 'portability' game - and get those XS's tied tightly
to this OS's implementation of their unique wonders - for the speed...
knowing that were we to change platforms we have some serious porting
issues to address down the road??? But at least we have the basic perl
inteface into the OLTP exposed in a reasonable way???
I can appreciate for the devotee's of the academic world - there is the
clear moral imperative to having 'ranking and orders' - since without
them how would one know if one had to write the valedictorian speach,
or be the person working the 'back up strategy' incase the valedictorian
takes a bullet.... But what about out here in the real world???
You know, where code gets generated by folks who are not worrying about
the inter-departmental politics of how their pious posturing will be
perceived one way or the other??? The 'dumb grunts' who merely have to
get it to work.
But clearly - if i felt that Perl were a specific field of mathematics,
then I would of course find your argument so compelling - If I were
worried at all about how I 'ranked' in the academic world to begin with.
But what if 12 years in the industry helped me better understand how
frighteningly silly that Degree in Computer Science really was to begin
with?
What if the process is really about seeing how others solve problems?
Or finding interesting problems to solve for real people with real
concerns about how to really do FOO????
What if the best thing to happen to the Shaolin Monasteries was that
they were sacked and burned - and allowed them to find the same level
of 'friar' { that old english phrase for 'free monk' } that helped
them get in touch with their 'ronin' ways???
What if wandering the lanes with nothing more than a rice bowl
was a great way to see the world and actually do good?
Or would this be the wrong place to propose that if only Larry Wall
had been a team player and been willing to do what needed to be done
to make things in sed/awk more ellegant - and be a 'real first water'
programmer rather than someone out to impress the 3rd tier wankers...
But the same would also apply to the fact that those CERN wankers
really should have been content with telnet and ftp - since clearly
this whole skank with the lame, lame, lame HTTP protocol was merely
there because those were so clearly lame types who were never going
to be 'real programmers'....
But barring that, we so clearly agree that providing best practices
and something like a standard is probably the best that we will be
able to do - since most RealProgrammers[tm] will wind up doing things
in ways we might not have expected - just like RealEndUsers[tm] tend
to do with the code we wrote things we hadn't thought about....
God, if Only we had been First Water Wonders...
Rather than merely Perl Coders....
ciao
drieux
---
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
