Letters between Backus and Dijkstra (1979) • Hacker News Board

Re: Letters between Backus and Dijkstra (1979)

#21

Post by Bromskloss » Sun, May 29, 2016, 6:30 PM UTC

bmer wrote: post #19

vanderZwan wrote: post #15

You know, I'm wondering: could part of Dijkstra's reputed arrogance be due to a cultural difference? I'm Dutch, and bluntly calling out flaws in each other's work is not considered all that rude over here; it's almost the opposite: not calling someone out on their flaws implies we either consider them a lost cause or not worth the hassle of educating. I almost got fired from a teaching position in Sweden because I to…

Full disclosure: a) Dijkstra is a bit of a personal "hero" of mine (hero in quotation marks, because I don't like to think of myself as a hero worshipper), because it was due to him I learned of textbooks written by guys like Eric Hehner and Roland Backhouse, which ended up changing my life significantly. b) I do not really grasp the technical issues being discussed in the correspondences between Dijkstra and Backus…

> textbooks written by guys like Eric Hehner and Roland Backhouse

Would you like to say something about those?

Re: Letters between Backus and Dijkstra (1979)

#22

Post by Bromskloss » Sun, May 29, 2016, 6:33 PM UTC

akkartik wrote: post #20

Bromskloss wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you say? Shall we divide the task among a few of us and type this up? (Or do people perhaps do this with OCR nowadays?) Would there be enough interest in having these letters in searchable form to motivate the effort?

Unfortunately they don't seem to be in the EWD archives at http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/indexChron.html . So they indeed don't seem to be OCR'd.

Now that you mention it, maybe we should just turn it over to those guys to make transcriptions and host it all. :-)

Edit: I sent a mail to the project maintainer.

Re: Letters between Backus and Dijkstra (1979)

#23

Post by eternalban » Sun, May 29, 2016, 6:59 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #15

You know, I'm wondering: could part of Dijkstra's reputed arrogance be due to a cultural difference? I'm Dutch, and bluntly calling out flaws in each other's work is not considered all that rude over here; it's almost the opposite: not calling someone out on their flaws implies we either consider them a lost cause or not worth the hassle of educating. I almost got fired from a teaching position in Sweden because I to…

> I'm Dutch, and bluntly calling out flaws in each other's work is not considered all that rude over here;

quote: “Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.” – Edsger Dijkstra

Backus, on the other hand, is a genuinely lovely man. If you haven't read/seen his interview with CHM [1], then I urge you to do so. (Pay attention to his closing remarks!)

[1]: http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/John,B...

Re: Letters between Backus and Dijkstra (1979)

#24

Post by internaut » Sun, May 29, 2016, 7:09 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #15

You know, I'm wondering: could part of Dijkstra's reputed arrogance be due to a cultural difference? I'm Dutch, and bluntly calling out flaws in each other's work is not considered all that rude over here; it's almost the opposite: not calling someone out on their flaws implies we either consider them a lost cause or not worth the hassle of educating. I almost got fired from a teaching position in Sweden because I to…

I've always liked the Dutch for this reason.

If it isn't possible to work with somebody while disagreeing with them, then you're the problem. If you spend long enough talking to anybody you'll eventually come across disagreements.

Many people take disagreements too personally.

I was just yesterday talking to a paramedic. I mentioned to him the article I saw on HN about medical error being the 3rd highest cause of death next to cancer and heart disease.

He immediately started to attack me, exclaiming how I was not an authority in this area so how would I know what I was talking about and therefore had no right to talk about something like this.

I explained I was not the source of the information, and that large numbers of people inside and outside the medical profession are concerned that a great deal of medical research isn't reproducible and in any case if car accidents don't even touch the number of medical fatalities occurring then it's a problem since car accidents are so problematical it's one of the leading reasons we're trying to automate them.

He blew his top. Ad homs everywhere.

Later I took to the Net to see if I was correct in my impression. Turns out my 'Master of Paramedics who read lots of journals' can't have been paying much attention because the British Medical Journal and Lancet are in lockstep with everything I had been saying. In fact I was probably far too kind judging from what the leading lights of the medical profession are saying themselves.

I expect he would accuse me of being arrogant.

I've said it before but tribalism is very powerful. It is far more dangerous to Science than Religion and it definitely gets in the way of technological change.

Re: Letters between Backus and Dijkstra (1979)

#25

Post by B1FF_PSUVM » Sun, May 29, 2016, 7:32 PM UTC

eternalban wrote: post #23

vanderZwan wrote: post #15

You know, I'm wondering: could part of Dijkstra's reputed arrogance be due to a cultural difference? I'm Dutch, and bluntly calling out flaws in each other's work is not considered all that rude over here; it's almost the opposite: not calling someone out on their flaws implies we either consider them a lost cause or not worth the hassle of educating. I almost got fired from a teaching position in Sweden because I to…

> I'm Dutch, and bluntly calling out flaws in each other's work is not considered all that rude over here; quote: “Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.” – Edsger Dijkstra Backus, on the other hand, is a genuinely lovely man. If you haven't read/seen his interview with CHM [1], then I urge you to do so. (Pay attention to his closing remarks!) [1]: htt…

> Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea

'Truths as hard as fists', is one way I've seen it put in another language (sortof).

> which could only have originated in California

Flattery will get you anywhere. UTexas, in this case ...

Re: Letters between Backus and Dijkstra (1979)

#26

Post by bmer » Sun, May 29, 2016, 7:38 PM UTC

Bromskloss wrote: post #21

bmer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full disclosure: a) Dijkstra is a bit of a personal "hero" of mine (hero in quotation marks, because I don't like to think of myself as a hero worshipper), because it was due to him I learned of textbooks written by guys like Eric Hehner and Roland Backhouse, which ended up changing my life significantly. b) I do not really grasp the technical issues being discussed in the correspondences between Dijkstra and Backus…

> textbooks written by guys like Eric Hehner and Roland Backhouse Would you like to say something about those?

E. Hehner has a course called "Formal Methods for Software Design", which he presents completely openly online (including video lectures, a textbook, solutions, and so on): http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hehner/FMSD/

I really liked it.

I also liked R. Backhouse's approach to it, encapsulated in two books:

1) less playful: http://www.amazon.com/Program-Construction-Calculating-Imple...

2) more playful: http://www.amazon.com/Algorithmic-Problem-Solving-Roland-Bac...

If you are looking for motivation, you might also like: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/lamport/pubs/p...

-----------------

I found Dijkstra's stuff to be easier to read after I had read books by Hehner/Backhouse, even though chronologically, Dijkstra came first.

Re: Letters between Backus and Dijkstra (1979)

#27

Post by bloaf » Sun, May 29, 2016, 7:46 PM UTC

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #25

eternalban wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm Dutch, and bluntly calling out flaws in each other's work is not considered all that rude over here; quote: “Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.” – Edsger Dijkstra Backus, on the other hand, is a genuinely lovely man. If you haven't read/seen his interview with CHM [1], then I urge you to do so. (Pay attention to his closing remarks!) [1]: htt…

> Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea 'Truths as hard as fists', is one way I've seen it put in another language (sortof). > which could only have originated in California Flattery will get you anywhere. UTexas, in this case ...

>Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of ‘touching’ a man’s heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.

G. K. Chesterton

Re: Letters between Backus and Dijkstra (1979)

#28

Post by jamesblonde » Sun, May 29, 2016, 7:50 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #15

You know, I'm wondering: could part of Dijkstra's reputed arrogance be due to a cultural difference? I'm Dutch, and bluntly calling out flaws in each other's work is not considered all that rude over here; it's almost the opposite: not calling someone out on their flaws implies we either consider them a lost cause or not worth the hassle of educating. I almost got fired from a teaching position in Sweden because I to…

I'm a lecturer in Sweden, and i know how you feel :) To quote some students on a list "What's this nonsense with independent thinking? Nobody ever told us we had to do that."

Re: Letters between Backus and Dijkstra (1979)

#29

Post by ktRolster » Sun, May 29, 2016, 8:12 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #15

You know, I'm wondering: could part of Dijkstra's reputed arrogance be due to a cultural difference? I'm Dutch, and bluntly calling out flaws in each other's work is not considered all that rude over here; it's almost the opposite: not calling someone out on their flaws implies we either consider them a lost cause or not worth the hassle of educating. I almost got fired from a teaching position in Sweden because I to…

You know, I'm wondering: could part of Dijkstra's reputed arrogance be due to a cultural difference?

Dijkstra got a lot of attention from his essay, "Goto Considered Harmful." Even though he did not come up with that title, he learned from it that a hyperbolic saying can grab attention, and be used for good.

So thereafter, he spent a while when he would say things in the most flame-bait way possible, to gain attention, because it worked.

Re: Letters between Backus and Dijkstra (1979)

#30

Post by dctoedt » Sun, May 29, 2016, 8:14 PM UTC

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #25

eternalban wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm Dutch, and bluntly calling out flaws in each other's work is not considered all that rude over here; quote: “Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.” – Edsger Dijkstra Backus, on the other hand, is a genuinely lovely man. If you haven't read/seen his interview with CHM [1], then I urge you to do so. (Pay attention to his closing remarks!) [1]: htt…

> Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea 'Truths as hard as fists', is one way I've seen it put in another language (sortof). > which could only have originated in California Flattery will get you anywhere. UTexas, in this case ...

> UTexas, in this case

Got a reference for that? The Wikipedia discussion suggests otherwise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming#Hi...