From: Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com>
To: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Quote by Knuth
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2021 23:34:03 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <trinity-9b942d3b-e94f-4094-8cb6-199db8d3eadf-1625607243471@3c-app-mailcom-bs12> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <YOS0RTZZgCfr7+Yv@protected.localdomain>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2021 at 7:51 AM
> From: "Jean Louis" <bugs@gnu.support>
> To: tomas@tuxteam.de
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Subject: Quote by Knuth
>
> * tomas@tuxteam.de <tomas@tuxteam.de> [2021-07-05 18:42]:
> > There's at least one wise person who put that exactly the other
> > way around:
> >
> > "Programming is the art of telling another human being
> > what one wants the computer to do"
> >
> > -- D.E.Knuth [1]
>
> Maybe Knuth's quote is related to literate programming. Maybe it is
> related to the resulting program and user's view of it.
>
> It mentions "another human being" and not "another programmer"
> specifically.
>
> It is nice to have quotes.
>
> It is nice to remember that quotes apply only within specific
> contexts and that there is no absoluta.
Knuth was wrong on so many things. I understand what he means, but
literate programming is not the way. Have got Joris van der Hoeven -
author of texmacs - fuming when I criticised him, because I did not
do the same with Donald. I'm doing it now.
Still, Knuth did a much better job making tex, than Hoeven doing texmacs.
In this regard, texmacs is a very disappointing implementation with a
syntax that no human being will find useful at all.
At the beginning of the computer age (1970) when the long-known algorithms
were first put on computers, they turned out to be highly inefficient.
Therefore, a large part of the work consisted in revisiting classical mathematics
to make it effective and to discover efficient algorithms to implement.
> Programs are made for people, users could not care less how is program
> really written. They need not know it.
>
> Theoreticall background may be so much distinct from practical
> application.
>
> Majority of applications today are for users and their life, business
> or entertainment. They care less of what we theoretically speak
> about the underlying program. What they want is functional software,
> and users often don't even know they are running "software", as terms
> changed so much. They may call it by name, like "Open Google" when
> they open any kind of browser, they may not know what "browser" ist,
> etc.
>
> --
> Jean
>
> Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
> https://www.fsf.org/campaigns
>
> In support of Richard M. Stallman
> https://stallmansupport.org/
>
>
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-07-06 21:34 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 87+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-07-05 14:37 append, push, and add-to-list Drew Adams
2021-07-05 14:53 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-05 15:19 ` Stefan Monnier via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-05 16:18 ` [External] : " Drew Adams
2021-07-05 16:46 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-06 19:54 ` Jean Louis
2021-07-06 20:08 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-05 15:41 ` tomas
2021-07-05 16:58 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-05 17:21 ` tomas
2021-07-06 1:17 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-05 18:10 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-05 18:18 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-05 18:11 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-05 18:39 ` Stefan Monnier via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-05 20:35 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-06 19:57 ` Jean Louis
2021-07-06 20:16 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-06 19:56 ` Jean Louis
2021-07-06 20:15 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-06 19:51 ` Quote by Knuth Jean Louis
2021-07-06 20:06 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-06 21:57 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-06 22:16 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-06 22:26 ` Alexandre Garreau
2021-07-06 23:21 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-14 16:09 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-14 17:37 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-14 17:41 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-15 3:08 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-18 22:25 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-20 17:18 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-14 16:02 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-14 16:20 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-14 17:41 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-14 17:43 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-14 17:49 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-15 3:05 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-15 6:50 ` tomas
2021-07-15 6:55 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-15 7:11 ` tomas
2021-07-15 10:55 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-18 22:23 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-20 17:22 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-18 22:20 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-20 17:27 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-14 19:24 ` Jean Louis
2021-07-14 20:15 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-14 20:30 ` Marcin Borkowski
2021-07-14 20:58 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-14 22:54 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-14 21:04 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-14 23:05 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-14 22:53 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-15 6:06 ` Marcin Borkowski
2021-07-15 6:21 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-17 18:43 ` Marcin Borkowski
2021-07-18 7:41 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-18 11:50 ` Jean Louis
2021-07-18 13:17 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-18 13:41 ` Jean Louis
2021-07-18 17:57 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-18 23:25 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-20 16:27 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-20 16:39 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-18 22:58 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-20 16:41 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-18 22:54 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-20 17:10 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-18 13:54 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-18 22:37 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-18 22:34 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-14 22:43 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-14 22:31 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-15 2:58 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-15 6:43 ` Eli Zaretskii
2021-07-18 22:14 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-19 7:07 ` tomas
2021-07-19 8:05 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-21 4:52 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-21 8:55 ` Christopher Dimech
2021-07-21 4:28 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2021-07-21 8:42 ` Gregory Heytings
2021-07-19 8:44 ` lisa-asket
2021-07-06 21:34 ` Christopher Dimech [this message]
2021-07-05 16:19 ` [External] : Re: append, push, and add-to-list Drew Adams
2021-07-05 16:41 ` Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
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