Broken Tools (was Re: [prog] [C] strings bug)

Kathryn Andersen kat_lists at katspace.com
Sun Apr 13 11:03:05 EST 2003


On Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 10:46:35AM -0500, Jenny Brown wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Apr 2003, Jimen Ching wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 12 Apr 2003, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
> > >I think that as the field becomes more mature we'll see more
> > >crossplatform code, more virtual machines/execution environments, etc.
> > >Which will, hopefully, make it easier to have portable code.
> >
> > I think you've missed my point.  When I asked 'how we got to this state',
> > I wasn't trying to imply that we weren't in this state before.  My intent
> > was to ask, how did we get ourselves into this state, when no other
> > profession has this same problem?
> 
> What other profession has existed widely for less than 60 years, and come
> from a whole new area without prior work to draw from?

Indeed.  I was told a fascinating snippet of information the other
day...
Did you know that, in the US, in the days of the railroad barons, when
there were various different competing railroad companies, that *time*
wasn't standardized?  Each company kept their own time which their
trains ran by -- which meant that if you were changing lines, you
couldn't tell, by looking at the different timetables, whether your
trains would actually connect or not.
 
I think you can see the analogy...

Kathryn Andersen
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Vila:  "Gutless inanity."  I like it.  What's it mean?
			(Blake's 7: Children of Auron [C7])
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