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“Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

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Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kay : Dijkstra :: Ruby : Haskell Dijkstra was correct in saying that you don't even need a computer to do "Computer Science," all you need is a pencil, paper, and a mental model of what you're trying to do given computer constraints. Dijkstra more theoretical; Kay more hands-on. I think BOTH are necessary, or at least important.

There is theoretical, and then there is theoretical: one is privately fueled and produces real-world industry-strong gems like Haskell; the other is publicly fueled and produces concepts such as self-stabilization and superstabilization. If Dijkstra is so awesome someone should write a Wikipedia article with more important achievements and less medals.

I don't really understand what you mean by privately or publicly-fueled theory, but anyway...

Instead of waiting for someone to write on the wiki, you could go out there and google a bit.

Very briefly: he made major contributions to compiler and OS design (including the first Algol compiler and a whole OS, the THE OS), devised two fundamental graph algorithms (shortest path and spanning tree), and spearheaded making programming into a serious discipline rooted in maths (along the way pretty much giving birth to structured programming).

He also wrote (longhand!) over a thousand essays on CS and related topics, which are (as far as I've read, and I've read quite a few) all a joy to read.

You can start here: http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/dijkstra_1053701.cfm and here: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/

Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always found that quote to be particularly douchey. Then again, I do think that Dijkstra's contributions to CS were more important than Kay's, too, but I suspect that I might not be in the majority there...

I think they are sufficiently different that it is not possible to compare importance on an objective basis. Dijkstra worked in Computer Science. And the relevant quote there is that "Computer Science is no more about computers, than Astronomy is about telescopes.” Dr. Kay did phenomenally important work with computers and programming. It’s important in its own right. Either of us could say that we prefer to dwell on…

The thing is, Dijsktra also did a lot of practical work (first Algol compiler, an OS, structured programming), so I wouldn't discount him as just a theoretician, either.

I agree that they both did very important contributions, and that there's probably no way to compare their magnitude, so it comes down to personal interpretation, there's no argument there. Still, I believe the arrogance comment by Kay was douchey :)

Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are sufficiently different that it is not possible to compare importance on an objective basis. Dijkstra worked in Computer Science. And the relevant quote there is that "Computer Science is no more about computers, than Astronomy is about telescopes.” Dr. Kay did phenomenally important work with computers and programming. It’s important in its own right. Either of us could say that we prefer to dwell on…

The thing is, Dijsktra also did a lot of practical work (first Algol compiler, an OS, structured programming), so I wouldn't discount him as just a theoretician, either. I agree that they both did very important contributions, and that there's probably no way to compare their magnitude, so it comes down to personal interpretation, there's no argument there. Still, I believe the arrogance comment by Kay was douchey :)

Perhaps a “Kay” should be a measure worth approximately one deci-Dijkstra.

Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So only people with meaningful things to say or build should get noticed and hired?

> So only people with meaningful things to say or build should get noticed and hired? ...based on writing essays. There are other ways to get noticed and hired. And, writing essays that reveal that you have nothing meaningful to say probably isn't a valuable use of time to get noticed and hired (if you are trying to get noticed and hired for a tech job, taking the same time to increase your portfolio of open source c…

> > So only people with meaningful things to say or build should get noticed and hired?

> ...based on writing essays.

> There are other ways to get noticed and hired.

Whenever hiring discussions come up, the three ways put forward to "get noticed" are personal blog, Github projects, and meetup attendance. None of those avenues work unless you have something meaningful to say or build outside of your day job. Having something meaningful to say or build in your day job seems to be deprecated in this market, because liars.

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