Drinkable Chicken

Wow, my previous post sure stirred up some controversy (by my blog's standards at least ;-). As I write this, the comments are still pouring in. (Also see the Reddit thread, which is probably where all these new commenters come from.)

But really, what I was trying to say is quite simple:

• I am a programmer.
• I am *not* a mathematician (obviously :-).
• If given a choice, I would much rather see the code sample (which I can understand) than the formula, although in an ideal situation you'd have both.

For some reason, some people seem to take "I don't like to read mathematical formulas" to mean that I know next to nothing about math. This assumption is not necessarily true. Nowhere did I mention anything about my background, other than the fact that I am not a mathematician. (For the record, I studied economics in college.)

Anyway, whatever my background, seeing convoluted (and even not-so-convoluted) mathematical formulas tends to intimidate me (much like it intimidates *everybody else* who doesn't have a strong grasp of this stuff). Not because I am inherently unable to, but because I lack the knowledge about what most of these symbols and constructs mean, in the given context. As I am a programmer rather than a mathematician, I prefer code samples.

Some people are apparently offended by this. Take, for example, this eloquent rebuttal. "How can you forget stuff like the meaning of Σ or Π as accumulators?" Gee, let me see... maybe because I have never needed it in my job as a programmer? You learn it. You don't use it. You forget about it. (The formula, that is, not the concept.)

Let's take the vector example in the original article. Some seem to think it's ridiculous that I would prefer the code over the formula. But tell me... why in the world should I know vector notation? Or why would I want to, in the first place? I've been programming since 1985, and I have *never* needed vectors. I guess I haven't been doing any real work!

For some reason I never needed differential equations either when I was trying to debug a GUI app or write an SQL query. And all this time I thought I was an actual programmer! Silly me!

Now, I am not trying to downplay the importance of computer science, or the importance of math in computer science. There are certain areas of programming that are strongly math-related, and wouldn't exist without it. I also believe that having a decent grasp of math makes one a better programmer. ¹) It's important... but not to the point where you have to be a math major in order to be a competent programmer!

Many (or even most) areas of math are completely irrelevant to my day-to-day work. While this is not true for everyone, it is true for the vast majority of programmers. So I don't like to read mathematical formulas. How does that affect my skills in designing a GUI, writing an object system, debugging a database, optimizing a query, writing unit tests with good coverage, refactoring a code base, ...?

Anyway, in my next post I'll react to some of the more reasonable replies to my post. :-)

¹) And so does a decent grasp of philosophy, sociology, linguistics, art, organization skills, emotional intelligence, ...

Not just in the "sucking up to people hoping to reap the rewards later" sense of the word, but especially the computer-related sense. I tried to make the G3 clamshell talk to my MacBook, or vice versa. Should be a piece of cake, with File Sharing and all that. It isn't. Reason unknown. They see each other in the "Network" tab alright, but when trying to access I get "The server may not exist or it is not operational at this time. Check the server name or IP address and try again." Makes no sense. All settings seem OK. I used to be able to connect without problems from Windows, but that machine is borked. Oh well. I'm going to call it a day now, I already wasted a few days last week trying to set up communication between Windows PC and the 1541-II.

This wouldn't be really worthy of a post, if I had not had this problem for as long as I can remember. Networking & I don't mix.

[Update 2008-03-02] OK, maybe I don't suck *that* much after all. I knocked the Wii from my network, and suddenly things started working. Apparently there have been cases where the Wii interfered, although the reports are scattered and vague.

With friends like these: Interesting article, or rather a rant, about FaceBook and similar sites. (via)

I dislike sites like FaceBook too, and especially MySpace, but largely for personal reasons. <rant> Somebody I know likes to abuse these sites to spread lies about her homelife and pretty much anything else. This behavior actually seems to be fairly common, probably because said sites tend to be infested with teenagers. They're not really my favorite demographic, mostly because many of them profile themselves as cam whores, attention seekers, and/or emo kids. ¹) Unsurprisingly, this is closely related to the stupidity level of these sites... full of "surveys", polls, gossip, and valuable info about who is going out with whom. Also, MySpace encourages butt-ugly designs, and annoying stuff like music embedded in web pages. ²) </rant>

OK, so I wanted to vent a little bit. :-) And yeah, I'm aware that bloggers could be considered attention whores too. ^_^'

However, I actually don't have much of a problem with the other issues mentioned in the article. (Although I skipped over the capitalist stuff.) I am also not surprised that these sites exist. "What was wrong with the pub?" the author asks. Well, not everyone is an extrovert who likes to be around people all the time. Before teenagers took over the internet, talking to people online was actually a great way to find new friends. (Or wives... ;-) Plus, you get to meet people that you would never have talked to otherwise (e.g. because they're shy or live far away).

And yeah, the internet in general makes it easy to have many superficial friendships. But it's not like that wasn't possible before. (In fact, the anonymous person mentioned before thrives on such contacts.) Some of my best friends I have never met in person (or at least, not yet). My experiences may not be typical, but the possibility of lasting friendship is very real.

¹) I say that, and yet my best friend happens to be a teenager... :-)

²) At least FaceBook, and hyves.nl (a Dutch MySpace clone) are bit cleaner looking.