Re: [groff] Comments about the bug report #42675 (long)

[John Gardner]

I just finished reading all 9,535 bytes of Bjarni's e-mail, and I still
don't have a single idea what he's talking baout... =(

On Thu, 22 Feb 2018 at 13:10, Bjarni Ingi Gislason <address@hidden>
wrote:

>   Title: \} considered as macro argument regarding register .$
>
>
>   The reported bug (#42675) is a panic one.
>
> (Later I checked the whole earlier "discussion" on the "groff" list.
> The whole shows me such a lack of thinking; it is just reacting and
> "don't think about it, neither before and especially not after"; "don't
> do experiments to verify your possible lies".)
>
>   1) The land is "legacy", so their laws prevail
>
>   2) The example does not work in legacy-land.
>      There the result is an emptiness.
>
>   3) No comparison is provided between legacy-land and the GNU-land
>
>   4) When the example has been translated to the legacy-language the
> result there (SUN 5.10) is:
>
> 1 1 1 2
>
>   which is correct (if you know the legacy-language)
>
>   5) The example in GNU-land shows:
>
> 0 1 1 2
>
>   which is correct (if you know the GNU-language)
>
>   The shown result in the bug report (1. 1 1 2) is corrupt.
>
>   6) If the example is from the legacy-land, the interpreter in
> GNU-land has to know that, to get the translation right, so
>
>   the interpreter has to switch to legacy-language, and it then says:
>
> 1 1 1 2
>
>   which is correct.
>
>
>   So there is no bug in the computer software, just "panic", or
> unwillingness to solve the problem in the reporter's own time.
>
>   There is no need for an extra explanation.  It is in the legacy
> "Troff User's Manual".  The real bug for this perceived bug is in the
> brain-software of people.
>
>   Summary:
>
>   Such reports do not fulfil some criteria to be accepted, so should
> be rejected with the possibility to carry on if the lacking elements
> are provided and accepted (just like articles submitted to a ((computer
> ) science) journal).
>
>   The current procedure "Need info" could be used with a time limit
> to deliver them.  The submitter should know, or learn in his own time,
> what to provide.
>
>   These "panic" reports are a time theft.
>
> N.B.  This whole mess shows that "style" matters, some do create bugs
> or pseudo bugs, while others aim at avoiding that altogether.
>
>   Too many prefer (automatically follow) the former: legacy, custom,
> house rules, same style in the same file, tradition; and reject, oppose
> the latter and of cause without any evidence for their "style" being
> better in all (even any) cases, or better in any possible future.
>
> N.B.  "groff -Wall ...", for people to keep them clueless, surrounded by
> (mental) fog, ignorant ...
>
> ###
>
> On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computing Science
>
> Edsger W. Dykstra (Dijkstra)
>
> SIGCSE Bulletin 1989, 21(1), pp. xxv-xxxix.
>
> Also "www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/"
>
> ###
>
> Know yourself, and the kinds of errors you make.  Once you have
> found and fixed a bug, make sure that you eliminate other bugs
> that might be similar.  Think about what happened so you can
> avoid making that kid of mistake again.
>
> Brian W. Kernighan, Rob Pike "The Practice of
> Programming". Addison-Wesley. 1999. P. 137.
>
> #
>
> Herman Rubin in the Usenet forum "misc.education.science":
>
>   Is a good artist a good teacher of art?  Do the best players
> in a given sport make even good coaches?  Or does the coach even
> need to have been a player in that sport?
>
>   What is good teaching?  One can teach manipulations without
> understanding; the present students have had so much of this
> that they almost demand that this be done in at least all of the
> "elementary" courses.  This is encouraged by the present
> elementary and secondary schools.  The products of such
> education no longer have their original thinking abilities.
>
> #
>
> The present method of "integrated" subject matter discourages
> thinking; we should not teach students how to apply one subject
> to another, but expect them to.  If they cannot, they have not
> understood the subject to be applied.
>
> #
>
> >A doctor diagnoses an illness on the basis of memorized facts.
>
> We need NOW doctors who can do MUCH better than this.  This
> almost assumes that one does not have libraries, data banks,
> etc.  Facts can be supplied by these; the ability to think
> cannot.
>
> #
>
> But a large proportion of college students have had the ability
> to think about what they are doing destroyed.  Should we teach
> students to act like machines?  This is how they have been
> taught what the schools call "mathematics", but which does not
> make it any easier for them to understand mathematical concepts
> than when they started out, AT BEST.
>
> #
>
> Dewey was an outright socialist, and made no bones about it.
> Here are a couple of quotes from him.
>
> "The children who know how to think for themselves, spoil the
>  harmony of the collective society that is coming, where everyone
>  (would be) interdependent."  1899
> "Independent self-reliant people (would be) a counterproductive
>  anachronism in the collective society of the future [...]
>  (where) people will be defined by their associations."  1896
>               John Dewey, educational philosopher, proponent of
>               modern public schools.
>
> I have seen a quote from him, which I do not have in my files,
> that anyone who starts to think threatens people.
>
> I do not believe in a society where the thinking is done by those
> in the government apparatus.  We need non-conformists for society
> not to stagnate.
>
> #
>
>   The important part of research, which I describe to my
> students as "seeing the obvious", and as it has otherwise been
> put:
>
> "Scientific research consists in seeing what everyone else has
> seen, but thinking what no one else has thought"
>
>                                                 -A. Szent-Gyorgyi
>
> This ability can be encouraged or suppressed, but it cannot be
> taught, and a bright student in a group with those who cannot
> see is going to have too many problems with his groupmates to
> have the right type of environment.
>
> The educationists' idea that anything can be taught is wrong.
>
> Working as a team toward a common goal has value when the goal
> is to produce something not present.  In a class, the goal is
> for EACH student to learn, whether or not the others manage to
> do so.  Classes should be for that purpose only.
>
> And if the schools had not demotivated them in the first place,
> it would not be necessary to remotivate them.  Small children
> want to learn.  Any teacher who makes a child sit there while
> others are being taught what the child already knows is
> attempting to destroy that desire.
>
> #
>
>   Education and training are almost totally different.
> Education provides the understanding to handle UNTAUGHT
> situations.  Trained teachers will, and should, be replaced by
> machines.  An educated teacher will not persist in the same
> explanation if a child does not get it the second time, and
> often even if it is not gotten the first time.  An educated
> teacher will not teach the same course in the same way
> repeatedly.  This is for robots, not humans.
>
> >I agree, but that isn't the real point, Herman; the point is do the
> >vast majority of the population give a damn?!  Would they sit still
> >and listen to it and take the time to learn it, or would they decide
> >that it had no relevance for them and tune it out?  You continue
> >to think only in terms of the desires, abilities, and interests of a
> >relative handful of students.
>
> If they are taught to think from the beginning, to consider why
> rather than how, the proportion will be greater.  If the schools
> would do as they used to, especially in the early grades, take
> the attitude that learning is not for today, or even for
> tomorrow, but for years down the line, this will not be so much
> of a problem.  Once you get a child thinking only about the
> short run, a mind is in danger of being destroyed.
>
> #
>
> >I've administered many multiple choice tests in my time, and I never
> >cease to be amazed at how frequently the questions are answered with
> >the wrong answer.
>
> That they are answered with the wrong answer is not the
> problem.  That the answer does not show the thinking is
> the problem.
>
> #
>
> Some of us have posted that we would ONLY give problems
> on our examinations, and not too many of them.  If your
> attitude is typical of what goes on in the present
> schools, and I think it is, it becomes clear that there
> is no place in the public schools for those who want to
> teach children to think instead of to become machines.
>
> #
>
> However, I consider the person who cannot use precise thinking
> as a major danger as a voter.  How can such a person consider
> the long-term effects of a policy, and long-term need not be
> 100 years in the future, but often as little as five.  The
> problems are complicated enough that even short-term situations
> require careful formulation and calculation, as one of the
> points which should be taught and stressed is that, when even
> a few of the aspects are considered, what looks obviously true
> is actually false.  There are many clear examples only involving
> a little algebra, or even "pre-algebra", with the calculations
> being done by others or by machines.  The ability to formulate
> long word problems is the mathematical equivalent of writing
> declarative sentences and paragraphs.
>
> #
>
> It is not working harder which matters; it is thinking.
> It is understanding, not memorization.  It is education,
> not training.
>
> #
>
> >I know people who can pass tests and get full scholarships to college who
> make
> >bad decisions.  I don't think the ability to puke information onto a
> bubble
> >sheet is going to help a person make a decision.
>
> I agree.  Making decisions requires thinking, and this is not
> developed my memorization and routine manipulations.  What is
> needed is getting general principles, and having to decide when
> and how to apply them in situations other than those in class
> or in the textbooks.
>
> --
> Bjarni I. Gislason
>
>