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| From: | Freddy López |
| Subject: | Re: Woctave-another gui front end |
| Date: | Sat, 8 Dec 2012 15:32:39 -0430 |
----- Original Message -----
> From: Søren Hauberg <address@hidden>
> To: Sergei Steshenko <address@hidden>
> Cc: Freddy López <address@hidden>; "address@hidden" <address@hidden>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 5, 2012 9:00 PM
> Subject: Re: Woctave-another gui front end
>
>
You know, in math there is a notion of limit ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_%28mathematics%29 ).> On Dec 5, 2012, at 9:04 AM, Sergei Steshenko wrote:
>> If people can't read documents, they shouldn't be doing
> engineering, scientific and development work.
>
> And if people can't be polite and respect that different people have
> different needs they should not speak in public.
>
> Ahh, the joys of making absolute statements about non-absolutes…
>
> Søren
>
And sometimes it makes sense to visualize a limit.
I believe that, as I said, "If people can't read documents, they shouldn't be doing engineering, scientific and development work", and the visualized limit is the crowd in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_Ic_OvIPtU .
...
I am reading a lot of info on what's happening in "science".
On Slashdot there was a story about a "scientist" (IIRC a physiologist) who in detail described the method he was using to process experimental data. He was describing it as if he genuinely came up with it - which I believe was true. I.e. I believe he came up with it.
The problem is that he came up with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapezoidal_rule .
In another place I read about an "expert" in electrodynamics who was claiming in order to detect 1.5km electromagnetic wavelength one needs an antenna of comparable length.
I also read about "scientists" (with background in mechanics) who were using finite element software for modeling of gas and liquid flows in order to model movement of matter inside nanotubes with 1 atom thick walls. And when they were told that electron clouds are not exactly kind of matter one finds in home piping, they didn't pay any attention - they were not taught quantum mechanics in particular, and they were not taught the notion of applicability in physics.
So, you better decide what kind of people you personally and Octave community in general want to support. While making the decision I strongly suggest to remember the following:
"first class people surround themselves with first class people; second class people surround themselves with third class people"
, etc.
Also, a useful story for you - I read it in the nineties.
A system administrator upgraded a female accountant's computer with a faster one (the computer was running Windows).
The accountant soon came to the administrator complaining that the new computer truncates files when they are copied.
The administrator was quite surprised to hear that, so he asked the how she came to that conclusion. She answered: "You know, when files are being copied, sheets of paper fly on the screen. So with the old computer when I was copying that file five sheets of paper flew, and now only three".
Beware, you are likely going to help those 5 -> 3 sheets of paper kind of people.
And the truth of my life is that I came from the educational system which did have admittance exams. I myself had first to pass admittance exams at the age of 14. Later in that school in the first semester there was a noticeable number of dropouts - even though originally they passed admittance exams.
The school was supposed to teach us math and physics at certain level, not to make us feel good and easy. And we didn't - this first semester was quite difficult.
But the reward was actually quite high - first year at the university was quite easy. Among other things because we came with pretty in-depth (with theorem proving - not simple indoctrination) of calculus and with pretty good knowledge of physics. For example, photoelectric effect was explained using quantum theory.
Also, even though my first computing experience was using a computer with punched cards ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card ), somehow the educational system was smart enough to teach us _first_ numerical methods of computations, and only then to let us do real programming.
You probably remember how frequently people ask here questions because of complete lack of understanding what floating point math is.
And that's why uneducated/undereducated people who can't read documents shouldn't be doing engineering, scientific and development work.
_Exactly_ because they are utilizing time and energy of more educated people who did bother to read documents enabling them to do engineering, scientific and development work.
Regards,
Sergei.
P.S. Even though I more often than disagree with Jordi, (re)read what he recently wrote about Octave users coming from Matlab world. Maybe you'll see conceptual similarities.
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