Thumb: rule of

[Kent Tenney]

interesting bits of profundity from another list:

"I like this quote from Fred Brooks :

`Show me your code and conceal your data structures, and I shall
continue to be mystified. Show me your data structures, and I won't
usually need your code; it'll be obvious.'"

Followed by a reference to this:

"(*) I will, in fact, claim that the difference between a bad programmer
and a good one is whether he considers his code or his data structures
more important. Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers
worry about data structures and their relationships."
-- Linus

[Edward K. Ream]

On Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 9:58:44 AM UTC-5, Kent Tenney wrote:

interesting bits of profundity from another list:

`Show me your code and conceal your data structures, and I shall
continue to be mystified. Show me your data structures, and I won't
usually need your code; it'll be obvious.'"

"(*) I will, in fact, claim that the difference between a bad programmer
and a good one is whether he considers his code or his data structures  more important. Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships."
-- Linus

I would like to forget these quotes, but it seems that I can't.

It's likely that these two worthies are a lot smarter than these quotes, or misquotes or made-up quotes or completely-out-of-context quotes would lead one to believe ;-)  Both may be true in some tiny context...

But there are so many counterexamples that these quotes remind me of the "what's wrong with this picture" puzzles.

1. Understanding data structure is no guarantee of understanding a program.  I have spent years trying to understand pylint, without notable success despite having been able to fix a bug in it.  The data structures are relatively straightforward.  But the theory and algorithms are almost impossibly complex.

Furthermore, I am proud of my ability to continually improve algorithms.  Does this make me a bad programmer?  @shadow and @clean do not depend on data structures. Mulder's original idea was based on a brilliant algorithm. My recasting of that algorithm had nothing to do with data structures.  And so on.

2. The idea that one can characterize "good" vs. "bad" programmers based on their relationship to data structures is risible. I would hazard a guess that there are at least a dozen more important qualities: flexibility, dedication, work ethic, interpersonal skills, creative abilities are ones that come immediately to mind.  There are surely others.

In short, these quotes are worth forgetting. Maybe now I can. Hehe.

EKR

[Kent Tenney]

hehe indeed :-]

I was tickled to see these quotes, not surprisingly in a
thread on a Postgresql list.

The Linus one is a footnote to a message regarding git,
his point being that git's success relied on the quality of
the data model, the rest followed from that.

It's certainly not for everyone, and absolutes are always
dangerous, but it confirms directions I find myself going
in, not really by choice, but being led by my ... world view?
... proclivities? regardless, the data-centric model keeps
imposing itself.

I've always considered Leo to be primarily a tool for managing
data, the capabilities it provides for working with the data are
seemingly endless and increasingly remarkable, but to me,
the core brilliance stems from the data model. Your words
are not just a linear stream, they live in a graph of nodes.
Wow, now you can do almost anything with them!

Not unlike Linus' claim that, given a good data model for file
versions, the consequence will be YUUUUUGE! VERY STRONG!

Thanks,
Kent

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[Edward K. Ream]

On Friday, May 6, 2016 at 11:17:06 AM UTC-5, Kent Tenney wrote:

hehe indeed :-]

Heh.  Well, rather than discuss this further I'd rather see a copy of a .json file that interests you.  It will help with the new #284.

EKR