Sermon on technique (was: Choosing Perl/Python for my particular niche)

[Fred Ma]

Cameron Laird wrote:
> 
> One of the hardest things in science (and business,
> and romance, and ...) is to deal with uncertainty
> and incompleteness.  Yup:  you have countervailing
> criteria.  Figuring out the true optimum is a bigger
> project than the CAD engineering you claim as your
> goal.  At some point--probably this weekend, from
> the sound of it--you need to make decisions, and
> move forward.  They might be wrong decisions, on
> narrow technical grounds.  Good scientists make
> wrong decisions all the time.  Don't let 'em get in
> the way of your science--that's all.

Sounds like the story of life, actually: making
decisions based on the available info, and the
residual uncertainty; making the most of the
decision, as well as knowing when things have
to change despite past decisions.  Not a bad thing,
really. Life would be dead boring otherwise.

> You've done a good job thinking about what you want,
> and what's available.  Good luck with your combina-
> torics.


Glad you think so.  I know many who would have thought
it was too much digging to make the decision, but now I
have a guiding "plan" if it can be called that.  Hopefully
it will optimize the use of my time going forward.  Now I
gotta run like the wind.  Thanks for all your input.

Fred

Fred