Half a Century of Crappy Computing
rebelscience.blogspot.com
Half a Century of Crappy Computing
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: Half a Century of Crappy Computing
#2Anyone want to explain that diagram of the while loop to me? The author apparently believes it is so self evident that he doesn't have to explain what any of the symbols or colors mean.
Re: Half a Century of Crappy Computing
#3Is this guy a genius or just crazy?
Re: Half a Century of Crappy Computing
#4Is this guy a genius or just crazy?
definitely crazy.
http://www.rebelscience.org/Crackpots/nasty.htm
This is his page where he claims all of physics is wrong.
Re: Half a Century of Crappy Computing
#5You're never going to convince anybody of anything if you can't explain yourself without using jargon. To be fair though, it looks like he's written a lot on the subject so cherry-picking one piece out of context is going to cause confusion. The guy should write some kind of manifesto that anyone can understand.
Re: Half a Century of Crappy Computing
#6Is this guy a genius or just crazy?
Uh, crazy, I think. From his "all physicists are crackpots because nothing can move in spacetime" page (http://www.rebelscience.org/Crackpots/notorious.htm):
"Why is motion in spacetime impossible? It has to do with the definitions of space and time and the equation of velocity v = dx/dt. What the equation is saying is that, if an object moves over any distance d x, there is an elapsed time d t. Since time is defined in physics as a parameter for denoting change (evolution), the equation for velocity along the time axis must be given as v = dt/dt which is self-referential. The self-reference comes from having to divide dt by itself. dt/dt always equals 1 because the units cancel out. This is of course meaningless as far as velocity is concerned."
Re: Half a Century of Crappy Computing
#7Anyone want to explain that diagram of the while loop to me? The author apparently believes it is so self evident that he doesn't have to explain what any of the symbols or colors mean.
Re: Half a Century of Crappy Computing
#8I'm all in favor of alternate models of computing, or styles of programming, but this guy writes like he invented cold fusion or N-rays. I think he relishes his self-appointed status as an embattled minority/shunned Messiah.
This is not to say that his ideas are totally without merit. I'm sure there are problem domains well-suited to his approach. However, just like all previous One True Ways, it's unlikely to be always be the best way of doing things. He also glosses over important details like his claimed hardware support, and how you're supposed to construct non-trivial flow diagrams in practice.
Re: Half a Century of Crappy Computing
#9Anyone want to explain that diagram of the while loop to me? The author apparently believes it is so self evident that he doesn't have to explain what any of the symbols or colors mean.
http://www.rebelscience.org/Cosas/components.htm#Types
Still doesn't really help. What's the while loop actually doing? Where's the data being stored, and how do you get it out?
Similarly for his quicksort example (http://www.rebelscience.org/Cosas/quicksort.htm) - from what I can see, there's no means to input or output whatever you're sorting - that part is all internal, and the only accessible parts are 'start' and 'done'.
Re: Half a Century of Crappy Computing
#10You're never going to convince anybody of anything if you can't explain yourself without using jargon. To be fair though, it looks like he's written a lot on the subject so cherry-picking one piece out of context is going to cause confusion. The guy should write some kind of manifesto that anyone can understand.
I don't think it's possible to explain COSA such that we could understand it, because that would require designing it to an extent that its flaws would become obvious.
(Although Savain doesn't have time to finish designing COSA, he sure has plenty of time to write blog posts...)