Human-Nets-Request%rutgers@brl-bmd.UUCP (Human-Nets-Request@rutgers) (09/01/83)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Thursday, 1 Sep 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 56 Today's Topics: Computers and People - Computers on TV & Who Reads Human-Nets & Teaching about Computers (2 msgs) & The Worth of Technology ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Aug 83 17:32 EDT (Tuesday) From: Denber.WBST@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: new shows for the Fall season "it is nice that computer programmers are considered to be role models" Uh huh - did you read the plot of the first episode? The Hardy Boys break into (oh no!) some government or business computers and go snooping around and generally wreaking digital mayhem looking for evidence. When questioned about whether or not they should be glorifying breaking the law, the producers of the show replied that they hadn't thought of it that way or something, but they would tone it down in future shows. I'm not hopeful on this one. - Michel ------------------------------ Date: 31 August 1983 21:59 edt From: Pool.Datanet at MIT-MULTICS Subject: Survey suggestion A survey need not be difficult or costly. One puts a few questions about reading habits of HN users into an issue of HN and asks people to reply, e.g. how often they read, how much time, how much time do they spend on other types of media. However, I agree it is not a good idea. Since replies are voluntary there would have to be a lot of interest by the receivers of the request. Judging by the lack of comments, I don't think that interest is there. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 1983 17:10:40 EDT (Wednesday) From: Marshall Abrams <abrams at mitre> Subject: College-level courseware publishing I have learned that Addison-Wesley is setting up a new courseware/software operation and are looking for microcomputer software packages at the college level. I think the idea is for a student to be able to go to the bookstore and buy a disk and instruction manual for a specific course. Further details on request. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Aug 83 13:57:00 EDT From: Eric Albert <ealbert@BBN-UNIX> Subject: So-called "losers" This message contains my responses to Keith Lynch's responses to my responses to his original message entitled "losers". Date: Mon, 29 Aug 83 10:33:15 EDT From: Eric Albert <ealbert@BBN-UNIX> The distinction between fixed and floating point is very non-intuitive. I never encountered the concept, despite numerous math courses, until I started using computers, and I remember thinking it an arbitrary distinction. Furthermore, it IS "an artifact of the language" -- some computer languages don't distinguish. Users find these languages much easier to understand. Date: 30 Aug 83 03:25 EDT From: Keith F. Lynch <KFL @ MIT-MC> I think it is a perfectly natural distinction. Floating point (aka real) numbers [...] Integers [...] Complex numbers [...] These are all different TYPES of numbers, and they are used for different things and different rules apply to them. [...] Perhaps you are forgetting that integers are a subset of the reals, NOT a different type of number. This, in fact, is precisely what I was getting at (and is the subject of the -1 to the floating 3 comment below): FIXEDs are NOT a subset of FLOATs. This is completely counter to the understanding that users have developed from standard math courses. [Keith:] ... Not one that I know of has ever been able to understand why -1 to the integer 3 is -1 but -1 to the floating 3 is undefined.) ... [Eric:] I'm not surprised users don't understand this; I find it downright weird! Again, many languages will do the automatic conversion to FIXED here (perhaps warning you if they have to round). [Keith:] I find I prefer strong typing. Obviously a language can be designed to replace a real number with an integer in any context where the real number makes no sense. Is this the right thing to do? Perhaps it should be an option. I would leave the option turned off. ... As mentioned above, replacing a real number with an integer is redundant: integers ARE real numbers. Only in computers is this arbitrary distinction maintained, and users (rightly) find it confusing and irritating. ... I still maintain that if a user tries to raise the integer -1 to the floating 3, he almost certainly isn't thinking clearly as there is no conceivable reason for wanting to perform this undefined operation [...] This is circular reasoning! What it translates to is "The user is doing something that doesn't make sense since they want to perform an undefined operation which is undefined because some compiler writer thought that it didn't make sense." I say that the operation DOES make sense, that it is the standard interpretation from mathematics, and that languages and systems designed for computer-naive users should act as much as possible like their analogues from the real world. You are welcome to "leave the option turned off", but I think that reflects your immersion in computers more than anything else. [Eric:] Keith, with his inability to see beyond "that's the way computers work and that's all there is to it" is the one who displays lack of depth. [Keith:] Where do I say anything that can be interpreted as that? Your "perfectly natural distinctions" which in fact violate standard math definitions, plus your entire initial message (which castigated users for not understanding concepts which I have argued are non-intuitive) give ample support for my claim. There are many important issues, such as how SHOULD numbers work in a system, how should characters work, what is the best metaphor for a file system, etc. I have at least tried to make SOME effort at these decisions. Have you? Or do you just sit back and complain that the machine is not Doing-What-You-Mean and those stupid computer jocks should fix it right or get out of the business? Actually, I am one of those stupid computer jocks, and I believe that if the machine is not Doing-What-The-User-Means then I should fix it right or get out of the business. Really, Keith, computers were initially meant for the benefit of the users, NOT the computer jocks! Yes, we can have it convert from integer to floating to byte to character whenever it guesses that that must be what you wanted, or we could just outlaw integers altogether (as most Basics do). Kindly do not criticize me for trying to resolve these issues and for explaining them to other users, including novice users. But you DON'T try to resolve these issues; you blame the users for not being bright enough to understand them. This is not "explaining" by any definition. [Eric:] This lack of respect [for users] is, of course, totally unfounded: it is based on the fact that the user doesn't understand computer science (which is important to Keith), even though the user may understand business, or chemistry, or some other field (which is not important to Keith) expertly. Solipsism at its most pronounced! [Keith:] Why don't you get a dictionary. That has nothing to do with Solipsism even if it were true. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (copyright 1983) defines "solipsism" as "a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing." The word is commonly used metaphorically to mean the condition of a person who is so locked into their own little world that they cannot even begin to understand that others might see things differently (just as "paranoid" is frequently used metaphorically to describe people who think that the world is dangerous, even though these people may not be clinically "paranoid"). I thought this described you fairly well. In any case, why did you ignore the statements in my above paragraph and confine your comments to my vocabulary? [Eric:] I feel sorry for the people with whom he works, who may now believe that there is something wrong with THEM. [Keith:] I think my 'success rate' is a lot higher than yours. Come, come! This stooping to ad hominem arguments is the last refuge of the incompetent debator. My comments were the summing up of a long set of carefully argued statements based on your initial message. You know nothing about my so-called "success rate"; your comment smacks of the child yelling "Nyah, nyah -- I'm better than you are!" Furthermore, even if I'm a complete failure in this regard, this doesn't relieve you from the obligation to answer my ARGUMENTS rather than comment on my personality. -- Eric Albert (ealbert @ BBN-UNIX) ------------------------------ Date: Tue 30 Aug 83 11:22:16-PDT From: Richard Treitel <TREITEL@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA> Subject: Medical care &c Mark, Your comment that you are "extremely uncomfortable with money as a means of rationing" sort of reminds me of the comment attributed to Winston Churchill when asked about the merits of democracy as a political system. He is alleged to have said something like, "It's the worst there is -- except all the others are even worse." This probably doesn't belong on Human-Nets anyway, and a long discussion of the economics of health care certainly doesn't, but given that the amount of health care sold in this country is limited by price rather than supply (contrast with gasoline in 1979), I don't see why rich people shouldn't be allowed to buy as much of it as they want. Poor people will have to be content with as much of it as they (i.e. the gummint) can afford, which will be decided politically. I doubt very strongly that money will be the sole allocation mechanism. - Richard ------------------------------ End of HUMAN-NETS Digest ************************