Subj : Re: RIP Niklaus Wirth
To   : Adept
From : Dr. What
Date : Sat Feb 10 2024 08:33 am

-=> Adept wrote to Dr. What <=-

 Ad> It does seem like something that might be ideal as guest lecturers of
 Ad> some sort.

Now that's a good idea.

 Ad> But always kind of hard to say what would be best, at least without
 Ad> lots of well-designed studies.

 Ad> And who knows how one _tests_ for such things.

But I don't think we need to test for that.  Let me give an example.

In college, one of my classes we had to write a text editor.  On Monday, the
prof gave us the specs.  Every other class or so, he would change the specs -
just a bit - or add another small requirement (scope creep).  At the end, he
told us why he did it that way - to simulate what you will have to deal with on
the job.

And he was pretty much right.  But such stuff wasn't on the test.  But that
wasn't important.  What was important was to make us understand that we will
almost never get 100% complete/correct specs at the start of the project and
things will change "in flight."

But that was the only class that did something like that.

 Ad> Neat! I do remember, in my Physics class, where we could put stuff onto
 Ad> the calculator as notes for whatever we were doing.

In college, I programmed up my TRS-80 PC-4 to do the Newton/Raphson root
finding method.  We actually covered it in class, which inspired me to write
the program.  On a test, the prof watched me use it.  He asked me a few quiet
questions about it and said "Neat!" and walked away.  I think he was impressed
that I actually applied something he taught.

 Ad> So I wrote a program for a particular set of problems, which, of
 Ad> course, meant that I knew the formula _really_ well, rather than it
 Ad> being remotely useful as a cheat sheet.

I did the same thing for Chemistry class in high school.  My classmates said
"The teacher won't accept the printout".  But he did - along with the source
code for the BASIC program I wrote.  He then said I didn't have to do the
homework for this anymore because if I could teach a computer how to do it, I
must have mastered the concept.


.... Sigmund's wife wore Freudian slips.
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