If you were only interested in outcome, you could write a program that multiplies two numbers together as a long series of "if" statements.
Thank you for proving my point! The proper, best practices way to program a flight control system is a huge series of if statements. No loops are allowed, because the computer hardware has to be considered in the engineered design! If you put in loops, an infinite loop can occur - if you use a series of if statements, that is not possible.
As a person that enjoys the theoretical, you miss the practical - these programs control hardware. The formula being correct does not matter - the hardware working correctly does. The program must take into consideration the hardware it will run on - that matters far more in most cases than the correctness of the algorithm.
I agree that is what he is saying - I disagree that it is a reasonable thing to say;)
A program is nothing without the computer it runs on. I could agree that if you were building programs for the purpose of knowledge (like he does, presumably), you are not an engineer - you are a mathematician. But that is not what computers are! Computers are a way to make something happen. By using generic computers running programs, we can more easily make complicated stuff happen.
The airplane surface you actuate is engineered - but not by itself, it is engineered along with the software used to control it. The vast majority of software is engineered - engineers are trying to get a specific outcome, they are not trying to calculate something. Any calculation is incidental to the primary purpose.
As a mathematician, he thinks the math is the most important part of it. Physics guys think the same - theory over substance in transistor design, for example. (CM polishing was a bad word for a long time!) Engineers just do what works - we don't care if it is perfect.
People should not be studying abstract programming in college in order to learn applied engineering for industry. That's why the CS degree is so disparaged - it is great if you want to work in a university thinking up cool math, but it is not very good at building real stuff.
More than not being "great", he seems to be rather foolish...
1) His main premise is that "software engineering" cannot exist because software cannot be proved correct, only proved wrong. Well, I got news for ya - rocket engineering is the same way. So is electronics. So are bridges! Or do you think that having the SRB on the shuttle burn through the main tank was by design?
2) He goes further to say that foolish mortals (unlike himself) learn by analogy, and so can't handle the truth, etc. Then, hilariously, he goes on to say that the only true way to look at programming is as deriving a formula! Imagine that, a mathematician describing engineering as deriving a formula! No comfortable analogies here...
3) Then he talks about how computers are "symbol manipulators". OK, but that is not very useful - computers are really devices that get things done that we want done. Some people want photons in pretty patterns on their screens. Some people want the control surfaces of aircraft actuated in ways that save time/money/lives. But a computer/program is useless without the output mechanism.
Some of his conclusions are good - lines of code is an anti-metric. But in general, this paper was awful!
people who learned the coding but didn't learn enough theory to get decent course grades
If I am understanding you correctly, this is the problem. Grades are supposed to measure the effectiveness of your learning. You are supposed to be learning how to be a useful programmer. If useful programmers are getting poor grades, an idiot has set up the curriculum...
Well, I can see the value in having a welfare system (I even voluntarily donate to some private ones!) - but when 50% of the population pays 3% of the taxes but gets to decide how the entire amount is spent (and decides that the 50% is just not getting their "fair share" yet), I think an assumption of "anyone in favour of a welfare state is in it for greed" is not such a bad one...
But we are not talking about breaking up a monopoly here - we are talking about a company judged "too big to fail". If you break it up, then the various parts are no longer too big to fail - and so if mismanagement continues, those parts are allowed to die.
These are companies that have a substantial negative competitive advantage - in other words, their competitors are eating them alive. That's why they need a bailout - they cannot compete. Its not like Toyota needs a bailout...
1) "keep the economy strong" != "provide a livelihood for its citizens"
2) "The abolition of incomes unearned by work." == "The abolishment of interest income" != "No welfare for anyone."
3) Your war stuff is also not logically connected - but I don't think anyone thinks it is a good idea for people to profit from war...
4) "usurers, profiteers" == "bankers and exceptional businessmen", death sentences for bankers and businessmen? Can't we just stop at the lawyers?
liberal ideals: human rights, equality before the law, right to conscientious objection, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, environmentalism, peace.
Right:
a) human rights (except for those that say annoying things - make them shut up), b) equality before the law (except when a politically favored group is targeted - then it is a "hate crime", and worthy of special punishments) c) right to conscientious objection (unless objecting to global warming or taxes, of course) d) freedom of religion (as long as you are either dead or aethiest) e) freedom of thought (as long as you think like we do - maybe we can turn universities into liberal creation machines) f) environmentalism (unless you want clean nuclear power - then you are evil, and must be destroyed!) g) peace (unless you are politically favored group - then your righteous anger should be vented upon those evil white Republicans)
Liberals have a very poor record when placed in charge. Worse than even the amazingly bad conservative record.
In other words, the big three are so incompetently managed that you believe Congress managing them would be an improvement? No company is that poorly managed... the big three may be closest, but only in the sense that the Sears Tower is closer to Pluto than the Hancock. Whatever kind of bad we have now, only Congress can make it worse. Think about it this way - maybe this year Congress will mandate "fuel efficient" california cruisers... but history tells us that in a few years the other party gets back in - do you want them to run the big three? I can see the slogans now, "a gun rack in every pickup!"
Think about this rationally for a while. Why are we in this position of wanting to prop up banks, car manufacturers, etc? Because they have achieved "too big to fail" status. You as much as admit it in your post:
It's not just the manufacturers themselves.
Others have mentioned how dependent the local economies are on these companies - and I don't think anyone is arguing that that won't have a huge effect when they fail.
My solution: Any company deemed "too big to fail" will be bailed out and broken up. If you are too big to fail, you are too big. Break them up into smaller companies that are less able to hold monopolies and influence politicians. This will solve the immediate problem, but will also solve the future ones...
If "forcibly extracting money from people" is immoral, it stays immoral no matter what purpose the money so extracted serves.
I'm not the original poster, but for me what makes it immoral is that the %50 of the people that pay 3% of the taxes can completely override the priorities of the 5% that pay 80% of the taxes.
In other words: the big gang gets together and threatens the best workers, and forces them to buy the gang whatever they want.
If you believe this will not lead to civil war, you are crazy. (What is the downside of universal health care for Democrats? Their voters don't pay taxes - they see all of the benefit, and none of the cost.) Everybody says that the Republicans are buying guns to beat the Obama ban - maybe. But they are buying an awful lot of guns... maybe liberals don't understand them as well as they should...
At 2 years old, I gave my daughter an old laptop of mine (a thinkpad, I think). I showed her how to get to one of the "learn to read" flash sites - she very quickly figured out how to make it work.
I think a laptop is great for kids - just be aware that the laptop will not survive! (She put something in the CD drive - and, of course, I was using a modified knoppix CD!)
When she turned 6 last year, I bought her a new EEEPC - that turned out to be a great investment. The (linux) EEEPC has great applications for kids, a kid sized keyboard, but full power for writing reports and such for school. (She has dropped that a few times from heights of about 6 feet or so - slight damage to the case, but the screen and machine are fine.)
And, of course, I love my EEEPC (that's what I'm typing on now!
OK, but: 1) The B-2 attacks at night and can't be seen or heard anyway 2) The B-52 attacks from so high you can't hear it coming 3) Harrier? No one uses that except ground pounders! 4) It doesn't help to hear the Thunderbolt - it's targets are tanks. It can shoot through a tanks armor, while surviving a direct hit from the tank's primary gun! 5) AC-130 just flies pretty far away in the dark, and shoots a REALLY big gun at anyone nearby....
this makes no difference at all to the business itself.
What?!? Obama's plan dramatically raises corporate taxes - and then adds required payments on top of that. It's your standard "tax them over half, and then tell them how they are allowed to spend the rest" plan.
And if you don't want to pay that income tax, just invest that surplus money into expanding the business.
Um, and how do I apply for this great "reiinvestment plan"? This does not exist - if you reinvest money in your company (under any plan I know of), you get a tax break spread over 5 years - the initial tax hit is immediate (remember, the tax laws are progressive - so that tax hit is massive, and the tax break is insignificant because it is spread out).
with decreasing income tax, it becomes more attractive for the small biz owner to just take more of the profits, instead of investing and hiring.
And with confiscatory taxes, you might as well just retire and leave the country... Taiwan is a nice place, with a maximum tax rate of 20%, BTW.
Does it really matter... whether the costs are borne by.. an Astronomy department
Well, it matters to the astronomy department;-}
The tracking budgets are pretty small, and the incremental cost of adding one satellite to the tens of thousands being tracked is insignificant.
I guess I should have said a satellite launch is insignificant. What I really meant was that if you were using the same equipment either way, a satellite would be cheaper - the real difference is in the equipment.
I wonder how much the costs would balance out for long-lived satellites.
Oddly enough, the sweet spot is in the opposite direction... if you only plan on the telescope being operational for a year, the satellite version approaches the cost of the aerial version. At that point, it is cheaper to launch it into orbit. It is expensive to make things last a long time with no maintenance in the harsh environment of space.
About half of what you said would be needed for the 747 based satellite as well - analyzing the data, positioning, troubleshooting of software bugs, etc. Of the rest, most of it is performed by a third party (doesn't come out of your budget). (NASA/DOD watches all LEO objects over a certain size for free - they do not care about country of origin.)
Some of what you said were real costs - like ground radio - are true additional costs. However, depending on the satellite design, these costs can be extremely small. (Burst transmission to an existing research facility.) It's not like these things are going into deep space!
If you look closely, I think you'll find that the satellite itself (ammortized over the years, if you like) dominates the program cost - that's why this 747 idea makes sense. Non-satellite telescopes are just orders of magnitude cheaper.
Well, yeah, but Rosat, Gamma, SARA, EUVE, Eureca, ASCA, Alexis, GGS-Wind, IRTS/SFU, Surfsat, ISO, Rossi, MSX, and 23 other satellite telescopes have been launched since Hubble - and yet only Hubble has been serviced in space. So I think the norm can be called as "no in space maintenance."
Ignoring maintenance (so far, I don't think many satellites have been repaired except for Hubble), an Atlas V rocket launch costs about $140M. A 747 costs about $150M to buy, more to customize for this application. The satellite is free to fly after launch, of course. A 747 costs about $27,000 per hour to fly - $230M/yr if flown continuously (which most airlines try to do - they are too expensive to have sitting on the ground).
So, a satellite is way cheaper - even if you were to completely replace it every fews years. The only reason I can think of for wanting this system is ease of maintenance and operations - basically, the telescope must be a LOT cheaper than an equivalent satellite telescope.
if not for global warming, we would have cooled more.
So you are saying that other inputs completely swamp the CO2 input, right?
Another way to say that is that changing the CO2 input has very little effect on the actual climate - there are just too many variables.
(That just happens to be a variable that we have some control over - but there are others; particulates, for example)
Personally, I don't say that Global Warming is true or false - I just think that making sweeping changes to our economic base are not justified, based on the information that we have. When the stuff we can change swamps the stuff we can't - then you'll have an argument.
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If you were only interested in outcome, you could write a program that multiplies two numbers together as a long series of "if" statements.
Thank you for proving my point! The proper, best practices way to program a flight control system is a huge series of if statements. No loops are allowed, because the computer hardware has to be considered in the engineered design! If you put in loops, an infinite loop can occur - if you use a series of if statements, that is not possible.
As a person that enjoys the theoretical, you miss the practical - these programs control hardware. The formula being correct does not matter - the hardware working correctly does. The program must take into consideration the hardware it will run on - that matters far more in most cases than the correctness of the algorithm.
I never said he was wrong - I just said it wasn't useful to think that way.
Yes - odd really. That really was his premise in the paper, however. (Read the paper and show me I'm wrong!)
I agree that is what he is saying - I disagree that it is a reasonable thing to say ;)
A program is nothing without the computer it runs on. I could agree that if you were building programs for the purpose of knowledge (like he does, presumably), you are not an engineer - you are a mathematician. But that is not what computers are! Computers are a way to make something happen. By using generic computers running programs, we can more easily make complicated stuff happen.
The airplane surface you actuate is engineered - but not by itself, it is engineered along with the software used to control it. The vast majority of software is engineered - engineers are trying to get a specific outcome, they are not trying to calculate something. Any calculation is incidental to the primary purpose.
As a mathematician, he thinks the math is the most important part of it. Physics guys think the same - theory over substance in transistor design, for example. (CM polishing was a bad word for a long time!) Engineers just do what works - we don't care if it is perfect.
People should not be studying abstract programming in college in order to learn applied engineering for industry. That's why the CS degree is so disparaged - it is great if you want to work in a university thinking up cool math, but it is not very good at building real stuff.
More than not being "great", he seems to be rather foolish...
1) His main premise is that "software engineering" cannot exist because software cannot be proved correct, only proved wrong. Well, I got news for ya - rocket engineering is the same way. So is electronics. So are bridges! Or do you think that having the SRB on the shuttle burn through the main tank was by design?
2) He goes further to say that foolish mortals (unlike himself) learn by analogy, and so can't handle the truth, etc. Then, hilariously, he goes on to say that the only true way to look at programming is as deriving a formula! Imagine that, a mathematician describing engineering as deriving a formula! No comfortable analogies here...
3) Then he talks about how computers are "symbol manipulators". OK, but that is not very useful - computers are really devices that get things done that we want done. Some people want photons in pretty patterns on their screens. Some people want the control surfaces of aircraft actuated in ways that save time/money/lives. But a computer/program is useless without the output mechanism.
Some of his conclusions are good - lines of code is an anti-metric. But in general, this paper was awful!
people who learned the coding but didn't learn enough theory to get decent course grades
If I am understanding you correctly, this is the problem. Grades are supposed to measure the effectiveness of your learning. You are supposed to be learning how to be a useful programmer. If useful programmers are getting poor grades, an idiot has set up the curriculum...
Well, I can see the value in having a welfare system (I even voluntarily donate to some private ones!) - but when 50% of the population pays 3% of the taxes but gets to decide how the entire amount is spent (and decides that the 50% is just not getting their "fair share" yet), I think an assumption of "anyone in favour of a welfare state is in it for greed" is not such a bad one...
But we are not talking about breaking up a monopoly here - we are talking about a company judged "too big to fail". If you break it up, then the various parts are no longer too big to fail - and so if mismanagement continues, those parts are allowed to die.
These are companies that have a substantial negative competitive advantage - in other words, their competitors are eating them alive. That's why they need a bailout - they cannot compete. Its not like Toyota needs a bailout...
1) "keep the economy strong" != "provide a livelihood for its citizens"
2) "The abolition of incomes unearned by work." == "The abolishment of interest income" != "No welfare for anyone."
3) Your war stuff is also not logically connected - but I don't think anyone thinks it is a good idea for people to profit from war...
4) "usurers, profiteers" == "bankers and exceptional businessmen", death sentences for bankers and businessmen? Can't we just stop at the lawyers?
liberal ideals: human rights, equality before the law, right to conscientious objection, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, environmentalism, peace.
Right:
a) human rights (except for those that say annoying things - make them shut up),
b) equality before the law (except when a politically favored group is targeted - then it is a "hate crime", and worthy of special punishments)
c) right to conscientious objection (unless objecting to global warming or taxes, of course)
d) freedom of religion (as long as you are either dead or aethiest)
e) freedom of thought (as long as you think like we do - maybe we can turn universities into liberal creation machines)
f) environmentalism (unless you want clean nuclear power - then you are evil, and must be destroyed!)
g) peace (unless you are politically favored group - then your righteous anger should be vented upon those evil white Republicans)
Liberals have a very poor record when placed in charge. Worse than even the amazingly bad conservative record.
My solution: Any company "too big to fail" is too big. Any company that is bailed out gets broken up as part of the deal.
Any money should come with huge stipulations.
In other words, the big three are so incompetently managed that you believe Congress managing them would be an improvement? No company is that poorly managed... the big three may be closest, but only in the sense that the Sears Tower is closer to Pluto than the Hancock. Whatever kind of bad we have now, only Congress can make it worse. Think about it this way - maybe this year Congress will mandate "fuel efficient" california cruisers... but history tells us that in a few years the other party gets back in - do you want them to run the big three? I can see the slogans now, "a gun rack in every pickup!"
Think about this rationally for a while. Why are we in this position of wanting to prop up banks, car manufacturers, etc? Because they have achieved "too big to fail" status. You as much as admit it in your post:
It's not just the manufacturers themselves.
Others have mentioned how dependent the local economies are on these companies - and I don't think anyone is arguing that that won't have a huge effect when they fail.
My solution: Any company deemed "too big to fail" will be bailed out and broken up. If you are too big to fail, you are too big. Break them up into smaller companies that are less able to hold monopolies and influence politicians. This will solve the immediate problem, but will also solve the future ones...
If "forcibly extracting money from people" is immoral, it stays immoral no matter what purpose the money so extracted serves.
I'm not the original poster, but for me what makes it immoral is that the %50 of the people that pay 3% of the taxes can completely override the priorities of the 5% that pay 80% of the taxes.
In other words: the big gang gets together and threatens the best workers, and forces them to buy the gang whatever they want.
If you believe this will not lead to civil war, you are crazy. (What is the downside of universal health care for Democrats? Their voters don't pay taxes - they see all of the benefit, and none of the cost.) Everybody says that the Republicans are buying guns to beat the Obama ban - maybe. But they are buying an awful lot of guns... maybe liberals don't understand them as well as they should...
At 2 years old, I gave my daughter an old laptop of mine (a thinkpad, I think). I showed her how to get to one of the "learn to read" flash sites - she very quickly figured out how to make it work.
I think a laptop is great for kids - just be aware that the laptop will not survive! (She put something in the CD drive - and, of course, I was using a modified knoppix CD!)
When she turned 6 last year, I bought her a new EEEPC - that turned out to be a great investment. The (linux) EEEPC has great applications for kids, a kid sized keyboard, but full power for writing reports and such for school. (She has dropped that a few times from heights of about 6 feet or so - slight damage to the case, but the screen and machine are fine.)
And, of course, I love my EEEPC (that's what I'm typing on now!
OK, but:
1) The B-2 attacks at night and can't be seen or heard anyway
2) The B-52 attacks from so high you can't hear it coming
3) Harrier? No one uses that except ground pounders!
4) It doesn't help to hear the Thunderbolt - it's targets are tanks. It can shoot through a tanks armor, while surviving a direct hit from the tank's primary gun!
5) AC-130 just flies pretty far away in the dark, and shoots a REALLY big gun at anyone nearby....
Neville Chamberlain, World War II.
;-}
Because there is a substantial population that listen to that crap at work
Oh - that explains why liberals never hear it - that work thing...
It may not be a sign of cowardice, but if done improperly it does invite attack.
this makes no difference at all to the business itself.
What?!? Obama's plan dramatically raises corporate taxes - and then adds required payments on top of that. It's your standard "tax them over half, and then tell them how they are allowed to spend the rest" plan.
And if you don't want to pay that income tax, just invest that surplus money into expanding the business.
Um, and how do I apply for this great "reiinvestment plan"? This does not exist - if you reinvest money in your company (under any plan I know of), you get a tax break spread over 5 years - the initial tax hit is immediate (remember, the tax laws are progressive - so that tax hit is massive, and the tax break is insignificant because it is spread out).
with decreasing income tax, it becomes more attractive for the small biz owner to just take more of the profits, instead of investing and hiring.
And with confiscatory taxes, you might as well just retire and leave the country... Taiwan is a nice place, with a maximum tax rate of 20%, BTW.
Does it really matter ... whether the costs are borne by .. an Astronomy department
Well, it matters to the astronomy department ;-}
The tracking budgets are pretty small, and the incremental cost of adding one satellite to the tens of thousands being tracked is insignificant.
I guess I should have said a satellite launch is insignificant. What I really meant was that if you were using the same equipment either way, a satellite would be cheaper - the real difference is in the equipment.
I wonder how much the costs would balance out for long-lived satellites.
Oddly enough, the sweet spot is in the opposite direction... if you only plan on the telescope being operational for a year, the satellite version approaches the cost of the aerial version. At that point, it is cheaper to launch it into orbit. It is expensive to make things last a long time with no maintenance in the harsh environment of space.
About half of what you said would be needed for the 747 based satellite as well - analyzing the data, positioning, troubleshooting of software bugs, etc. Of the rest, most of it is performed by a third party (doesn't come out of your budget). (NASA/DOD watches all LEO objects over a certain size for free - they do not care about country of origin.)
Some of what you said were real costs - like ground radio - are true additional costs. However, depending on the satellite design, these costs can be extremely small. (Burst transmission to an existing research facility.) It's not like these things are going into deep space!
If you look closely, I think you'll find that the satellite itself (ammortized over the years, if you like) dominates the program cost - that's why this 747 idea makes sense. Non-satellite telescopes are just orders of magnitude cheaper.
Well, yeah, but Rosat, Gamma, SARA, EUVE, Eureca, ASCA, Alexis, GGS-Wind, IRTS/SFU, Surfsat, ISO, Rossi, MSX, and 23 other satellite telescopes have been launched since Hubble - and yet only Hubble has been serviced in space. So I think the norm can be called as "no in space maintenance."
Ignoring maintenance (so far, I don't think many satellites have been repaired except for Hubble), an Atlas V rocket launch costs about $140M. A 747 costs about $150M to buy, more to customize for this application. The satellite is free to fly after launch, of course. A 747 costs about $27,000 per hour to fly - $230M/yr if flown continuously (which most airlines try to do - they are too expensive to have sitting on the ground).
So, a satellite is way cheaper - even if you were to completely replace it every fews years. The only reason I can think of for wanting this system is ease of maintenance and operations - basically, the telescope must be a LOT cheaper than an equivalent satellite telescope.
Perhaps he die while posting it...
if not for global warming, we would have cooled more.
So you are saying that other inputs completely swamp the CO2 input, right?
Another way to say that is that changing the CO2 input has very little effect on the actual climate - there are just too many variables.
(That just happens to be a variable that we have some control over - but there are others; particulates, for example)
Personally, I don't say that Global Warming is true or false - I just think that making sweeping changes to our economic base are not justified, based on the information that we have. When the stuff we can change swamps the stuff we can't - then you'll have an argument.