Here's an equivalent from the computer science field:
The 6600 was three times faster than the previous record-holder, the IBM 7030 Stretch; this alarmed IBM. IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson wrote a memo to his employees: "Last week, Control Data... announced the 6600 system. I understand that in the laboratory developing the system there are only 34 people including the janitor. Of these, 14 are engineers and 4 are programmers... Contrasting this modest effort with our vast development activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry leadership position by letting someone else offer the world's most powerful computer." Cray's reply was sardonic: "It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question."
While waiting in line at the bank one day I noticed that the customer in front of me was angrily arguing with the female teller over when the bank credited deposits vs debits on an account --- it sounded like there were some bounced checks involved and the customer wanted the bank to foot the bill. The customer asked for, and got, the teller's boss --- another women. The argument continued.
After a bit more of the back and forth the customer asked, and I quote, "Could talk to a man about this?"
My jaw dropped.
The customer was a women.
After telling the story to a banker and old neighbor I asked if this sort of thing was common in what I'd thought of as the 21st century.
I disagree. Operator overloading is nothing more then syntactic
sugar. Code that uses it is no more difficult to read then code that makes ordinary function callls.
When you see:
Foo a, b(3), c(5.3); a = b + c;
You will be tempted to assume that addition is occurring. Do not! Treat the above code exactly as if it had been written:
Foo a, b(3), c(5.3); a = b.add(c);
Or better yet:
Foo a, b(3), c(5.3); a.assign(b.add(c));
Once you've realized that it's all function calls your frustrations will vanish.
SGI made their sample implementation of OpenGL available at http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/index.html
some time ago.
Mesa is the open source implementation most people use if they need a software implementation. However, the hardware implementations are frequently many, many times faster and much prefered.
Let me put it to you this way: even the how-to books that have you wiring up your entire home tell you to stay away from power mains. Very, very far away.
MacGyver would hire an electrician. You should too.
It will start out as a closed network. They won't be able to move much data in or out because that's one easy way to keep a network secure. An "air gap" is a wonderful thing for computer security.
Then the users will demand access to the rest of the Internet, and they'll add a gateway.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's an equivalent from the computer science field:
The 6600 was three times faster than the previous record-holder, the IBM 7030 Stretch; this alarmed IBM. IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson wrote a memo to his employees: "Last week, Control Data ... announced the 6600 system. I understand that in the laboratory developing the system there are only 34 people including the janitor. Of these, 14 are engineers and 4 are programmers... Contrasting this modest effort with our vast development activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry leadership position by letting someone else offer the world's most powerful computer." Cray's reply was sardonic: "It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question."
While waiting in line at the bank one day I noticed that the customer in front of me was angrily arguing with the female teller over when the bank credited deposits vs debits on an account --- it sounded like there were some bounced checks involved and the customer wanted the bank to foot the bill.
The customer asked for, and got, the teller's boss --- another women. The argument continued.
After a bit more of the back and forth the customer asked, and I quote, "Could talk to a man about this?"
My jaw dropped.
The customer was a women.
After telling the story to a banker and old neighbor I asked if this sort of thing was common in what I'd thought of as the 21st century.
She just laughed.
When you see:
You will be tempted to assume that addition is occurring. Do not! Treat the above code exactly as if it had been written:
Or better yet:
Once you've realized that it's all function calls your frustrations will vanish.SGI made their sample implementation of OpenGL available at http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/index.html
some time ago.
Mesa is the open source implementation most people use if they need a software implementation. However, the hardware implementations are frequently many, many times faster and much prefered.
Let me put it to you this way: even the how-to books that have you wiring up your entire home tell you to stay away from power mains. Very, very far away.
MacGyver would hire an electrician. You should too.
It will start out as a closed network. They won't be able to move much data in or out because that's one easy way to keep a network secure. An "air gap" is a wonderful thing for computer security.
Then the users will demand access to the rest of the Internet, and they'll add a gateway.
Then it won't be secure anymore.