about main()

[Jim Lee]

On 07/05/18 14:15, MRAB wrote:
> On 2018-07-05 21:43, Jim Lee wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 07/05/18 12:58, Chris Angelico wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 4:27 AM, Jim Lee <jlee54 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 07/05/18 10:47, Calvin Spealman wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> You say "pitfall", but I say "allow developers to focus on 
>>>>> higher-level
>>>>> problems and enable developers to specialize among tasks so every 
>>>>> single one
>>>>> of us doesn't have to be a jack of all trades just to build a todo 
>>>>> list
>>>>> app".
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Sure, that's the *benefit*, but the benefit doesn't erase the 
>>>> *pitfall*.
>>>>
>>>> It's the same as with any other convenience.  When a convenience 
>>>> becomes a
>>>> necessity, skill is lost.
>>>>
>>>> Take a village of people.  They live mostly on wild berries.  One 
>>>> day, a man
>>>> invents an automated way to sort good berries from poisonous 
>>>> berries.  Soon,
>>>> all the villagers take their berries to him to be sorted. The man 
>>>> dies, but
>>>> passes the secret on to his son before doing so.  This continues 
>>>> for a few
>>>> generations.  Eventually, the final descendant dies with no 
>>>> children, and
>>>> the secret vanishes.  Now, the entire village is clueless when it 
>>>> comes to
>>>> identifying the poisonous berries.
>>>>
>>> I would respect your analogy more if every compiler used today were
>>> forty years old and not being developed by anyone other than its
>>> original creator(s).
>>>
>>> ChrisA
>>
>> It's not about compilers - it's about skills.  As programming becomes
>> more and more specialized, it becomes harder and harder to find
>> programmers with a skill set broad enough to be adaptable to a different
>> task.
>>
> Fortunately the berry-sorter is open-source!

Yes, that helps, as long as the reader is able to understand all the 
concepts and algorithms used...

-Jim