British translation for our software as well. Just what I need. One more
"Joseph M. Newcomer" <newcomer@flounder.com> wrote in message
news:f4da435or0e2q27d8joilo4lcg4lo02q78@4ax.com...
It's when programmers start writing siseof(structurename) that you know
there are
problems....
Don't get me started! There are a whole host of APIs like
"GetSysColour-LeftArrow-BackSpace" and which require far too much typing
:-)
Not to mention types like COLOUR-LeftArrow-Backspace-RightArrow-REF !
True story: the first year I was at the SEI, a new hire, a BS in Computer
Science from
CMU, asked me what was wrong with her program. She'd written
printf("The value is %d," value);
and it wouldn't compile!
See the error?
Misplaced comma.
So I pointed it out to her, and said it was a simple typo, and she should
change it and it
would compile,. She looked at me like I'd landed from another planet and
told me that her
code was perfectly correct. I pointed out that it was wrong, and she
said, "but everyone
knows the comma goes INSIDE the quotes!"
The rest of the story is not pleasant; it took a year to get her out of
the organization.
Terminal stupidity is hard for some organizations to recognize.
In the early 80s I was lecturing on Relativity at Liverpool University
(for the final year honours course in mathematical physics).
I also had some 1-1 tutorials with students doing special projects. One
such was doing her project on relativity, having attended the lecture
course, in which I had elegantly demonstrated the equivalance of a
gravitational field with a curved space-time, in which motion under
gravity was motion along the geodesics of the curved space time - and
emphasised the simplicity of the concept despite all the complicated maths
(which we also did of course).
In a tutorial she had obviously bcome "confused" about something.
I ask: "Where does this particle go?"
[Silence]
I prompt: "Down the geodesic of space time?"
and then the bomb shell. She replies
"But doesn't the gravity pull them off?"
:-(
Dave
--
David Webber
Author of 'Mozart the Music Processor'
http://www.mozart.co.uk
For discussion/support see
http://www.mozart.co.uk/mzusers/mailinglist.htm