Re: Heavens!

"Howard Rogers" <aldeburgh_at_bigpond.com> wrote in message news:<_03na.15306$1s1.241198_at_newsfeeds.bigpond.com>...

> disagreed with my explanation of Block Sizes ... 'it says in <insert name of
> well known book here> that big blocks are for Warehouses and small ones are
> for OLTP'. I give up.

Gawd! That one lingers, doesn't it....

> The whole thing is marketing gone utterly mad. I wouldn't mind the Peddlar's
> peddling as hard as they do if they for one moment would shut up about how
> 'expert', 'respected' and 'leading' they are. But they don't, because
> they're only interested in leveraging their publishability for increased
> consulting fees. I don't see JL, TK and SA doing that (and of course they
> still make mistakes, as we all do), but somehow the market doesn't see the
> difference.
>
> It's not just a shame, it's abysmal. And absurd.

I got this recently from a shpiel by Fabian Pascal. The original author is a guy whose authority NO ONE in this industry should even attempt to question:

<quote of stunning stuff>

"I hope very much that computing science at large will become more mature, as I am annoyed by two phenomena that both strike me as symptoms of immaturity.

The one is the widespread sensitivity to fads and fashions, and the wholesale adoption of buzzwords and even buzznotes. Write a paper promising salvation, make it a "structured" something or a "virtual" something, or "abstract", "distributed" or "higher-order" or "applicative" and you can almost be certain of having started a new cult.

The other one is the sensitivity to the market place, the unchallenged assumption that industrial products, just because they are there, become by their mere existence a topic worthy of scientific attention, no matter how grave the mistakes they embody. In the sixties the battle that was needed to prevent computing science from degenerating to "how to live with the 360" has been won, and "courses" -- usually "in depth"!-- about MVS or what have you are now confined to the not so respectable subculture of the commercial training circuit. But now we hear that the advent of the microprocessors is going to revolutionize computing science!

I don't believe that, unless the chasing of dayflies is confused with doing research. A similar battle may be needed"

--E.W. Dijkstra, My hopes of computing science, 1979

</quote of stunning stuff>

I find this utterly precious. What is stunning is *when* it was written. Dijkstra was always a beacon for me. This shows why. Pity he's gone. But his spirit will stay.

>
> I'm thinking of taking up a much less stressful occupation, such as
> 'housewife'.
>

Hmmm, I'm told by someone in authority that it's highly over-rated as a holiday camp... :)

>
> None from my courses, I assure you!!
>

Oh, I know that. One of your students is our DBA. She's referred to affectionately as "the DBA bitch". I guess it rubs off after all, no? :D)))

Cheers
Nuno Souto
wizofoz2k_at_yahoo.com.au.nospam Received on Wed Apr 16 2003 - 00:59:14 CDT