Distributed RVS, Darcs, tech love

[Lew]

llothar wrote:
> On 21 Okt., 22:45, Lew <l... at lewscanon.com> wrote:
> 
>> Evidence is that TeX development is dead.
> 
> Exactly and Knuths only contribution to software development was the
> theory of
> "literate" programming. As i said for me algorithms are not software
> development,
> this is programming in the small (something left for coding apes), not
> programming
> in the large. There are no problems anymore with programming the
> small, sure you
> can try to develop Judy Arrays or another more optimized sorting
> algorithm, but
> this has no real world effect. It is theoretical computer science -
> well a few
> people seem to like this.
> 
> And as an evidence that this theory works ("literate" programming) -
> there is no
> easy prove about efficient workflow - was his TeX program where only
> some parts
> are handled like this. But drawing an conclusion from a "developement
> dead"
> project to other "in development" projects is just sorry: fucking
> stupid.

No, I conclude that literate programming works from the prevalence of tools 
like Javadoc and Doxygen, and the Sun and MS coding standards documents.  I 
see the direct benefits in my own work every day.

Proposing a straw-man argument then knocking it down with mere purple prose 
like "just sorry: [sic] fucking stupid" is, sorry, just fucking stupid.  See? 
  No logic there at all.  Thus proving that there's no logic there at all.

> Everythink in the real world says that "literate" programming is not
> useable.

Rrr?  "Everythink" does, eh?  Maybe what the world needs instead is literate 
programmers, then.

Cite some specifics, please?  And remember, when you say "everything" that 
even one counter-example disproves.

There is evidence that aspects of "literate" programming do work.  Besides, 
that a theory is wrong is part of science, not a denigration of the scientist. 
  Even a wrong theory, like Newtonian mechanics, advances the science (e.g., 
physics) and is evidence that the scientist (Isaac Newton) is a genius.  Like 
Donald Knuth.

> Sure if you are an academic guy you can do endless post-mortem
> analysis you might
> find this amazing but it is just as worthless for the real world as a
> guy building
> a copy of the Eiffel tower from burned matches - a pure hobby.

So you say, again with just rhetoric and complete lack of evidence or argument 
to support the outrageous assertion.  Many people, myself included, have seen 
your so-called "real world" benefit significantly from academic results. 
Object-oriented programming is an example.  The fertilization works both ways; 
check out how the science of computer graphics expanded thanks to LucasFilms.

Try using reason, logic and evidence for your points instead of merely 
shouting obscenities, hm?

-- 
Lew