On the cruelty of really teaching computing science

cs.utexas.edu

9 points·dedalus··6 comments

this djikstra classic teaches us some very important lessons about the nature of our craft

I wish your link was accessible without ACM credentials as well but luckily had someone who is a member and could get it for me.

Another one neatly summarizing the salient points is here http://www.gaon.net/vashti/ps/Gal92a.pdf

Anyone know where I can find materials for the course Dijkstra describes (or similar)? As a mostly-self-taught hacker, I'd love to get a more formal perspective, and this seems like an appealing way.

1 point by dedalus 0 minutes ago | link | edit | delete [cturner] we joked that when we iron out all the bugs in our software we would b walking on flat bugs :) yep! totally agree with the fact it should be called error. [mm] I would suggest you start reading most of his transcripts to get an idea here: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/

reputedly he never had to work on a computer (or owned one)

[cturner] we joked that when we iron out all the bugs in our software we would b walking on flat bugs :) yep! totally agree with the fact it should be called error.

[mm] I would suggest you start reading most of his transcripts to get an idea here: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/

reputedly he never had to work on a computer (or owned one)

Also see:

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=76381

I understand in some language cultures people would say "the glass fell from my hand" rather than "I dropped the glass". The latter is better because of the acknowledgement of responsibility.

Similarly, I prefer his suggestion of "error tracking" to "bug tracking".

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