meaning of continue (WAS: Some interesting novice questions [...

[John Stanley]

chris at mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek) writes:

> In article <6ecTR1w161w at phoenix.com> stanley at phoenix.com (John Stanley)
> writes a rather vitriolic message, including the following:
                  ^IYHO, but not mine, nor intended
> >Who is H&S?
> >They wrote C?
   The question came up because they were quoted as authorities. Since they
didn't design the language, or issue the ANSI standard, they are second
hand info, and hearsay. I was told MY reference was invalid for that
reason, then immediatley had them quoted to me.

> >I thought the purpose of coding was to get a MACHINE to do the right thing.
> 
> Actually, no.  This is only a part of the task, though usually a large
> part.  It is also important to make the result understandable: to the
> people and/or machines that will use it; to the people and/or software
> that will maintain it; and so on.

   However, having code that humans think does one thing and the machine
'thinks' should do another is worth less than 0. It does not do what it
should, and probably does nothing worthwhile, and it will require
resources to fix.  Code that executes properly but is unmaintainable is
worth something. Otherwise, why would executable-only software cost so
much? 
> 
> As to the main point of the message (which I will not quote further), I 
> will say only this:  Anthropomorphism is a form of analogy, and analogy 
> is a very powerful tool for analysis, but also a dangerous one.  It is 
> right to be wary of analogies, but it is not right to reject them out 
> of hand simply because they *are* analogies.

   The analogy was rejected because it was flawed, not 'out of hand'. It
was causing the original poster confusion, and was thus falling into
'dangerous' mode. It was a VERY extreme case of analogy, and would be
dangerous even were it correct. Any non-computer literate person who
hears such definitions of language elements will certainly draw improper
conclusions about computers, and there is already too much of that. New
programmers will hear others use it and think it is the correct way to
think about the language. 





"Arinth is a beautiful planet." "Oh, have you been there?"
  "Yes, but not yet." The Doctor. (TB)