On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 07:36:26 -0600, Paul Gilmartin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>... >The conspicuous naivete exhibited in most of the postings to a recent >ASSEMBLER-LIST thread concerning coding the exponential function sugests >that assembler programmers are hardly better than Java programmers in >this respect. John G. was one of a few contributors who manifested a >good mathematical background and familiarity with established art. >... This, and many of the the following comments about arithmatic vs. math are true but beside the point. Mathematics, arithmetic, and especially the intracies of floating point arithmetic, are not fields of knowledge needed for many Software Engineering endevors. Very few developers of system software (for example) need to worry about loss of significance when computing an arc tangent. I don't dispute anything said here about the poor quality of education, but apply the right metric to the tasks at hand. The ability to think logically applies to all fields (that I can think of). Beyond that, ignorance in one area does not indicate any failing in another field. Pat O'Keefe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
