[Haskell-cafe] Markdown extension for Haddock as a GSoC project

Alexander Solla alex.solla at gmail.com
Mon Apr 29 03:42:13 CEST 2013


On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 6:10 PM, Richard A. O'Keefe <ok at cs.otago.ac.nz>wrote:

>
> Damn!  Why did Watts Humphrey have to die before he'd convinced
> the world that the cheapest way to fix bugs is to keep them out
> in the first place?


I think that much has to do with the historical division in computer
science.  We have mathematics on the right hand, and electrical engineering
on the wrong one.  The electrical engineers were unduly influential in the
1960s, 70s, and 80s.  The effects of such influence are still being felt.
 The average software developer thinks that mathematics, with its
goody-two-shoes focus on soundness and validity, and all those hard to say
words, is /too hard/.  And as Kernighan once said,

"Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the
first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how
will you ever debug it?"

I've been scoffed at during interviews for saying I solve problems on paper
before I start typing!  Obviously, names, types, and arrows on recycled
printer paper are too clever by half.
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