Ghost, Do you really want to go to war with me

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Kelsey Bjarnason wrote on Tue, 04 Apr 2006 05:05:47 -0700

It would appear so. Of course in this case he's trying to read his own code -- and failing miserably. :-)

Pedant point: Another multilayer cake. The code written by me, the application programmer, has to go through a couple of other layers before the microprocessor even touches it.

Still, I for one expect the code to do what it's told, and for the compiler to translate it correctly. Bugs get in the way. :-)

The former is easier. However, the latter is routinely done for purposes of finding a bug -- which might be construed as "a failure to properly communicate the problem to the computer" (or to the compiler in lieu thereof). Or one can read the code to find the bug (good luck, because humans have a bad habit of skipping over familiar things; hence the "fresh eyes" method of having someone else look to see if they can find it).

The computer is terrible at composing, but very good at tracking and, to some extent, judging. In short, if I tell it to set a variable to 3, even though it should be 2 were the algorithm written properly, it will set it to 3. That it should be 2 is not the computer's fault.

I'm not sure about "backwards". More like "sideways", "twisted like a pretzel", and "streamed out as he thinks on the fly". You have no doubt noticed that his code has no white space and is apparently typed as though it were words in an autofolding editor such as Pan or some variants of vi.

It's mildly interesting but hardly supportable in that form. :-)

-- Windows Vista. Because everyone wants a really slick-looking 8-sided wheel.