Hahhahah :) Makes sense.
I get that feeling when in public media somebody who's supposed to
explain something for the general people uses "football" terms in his
words. Imagine Biden, while at the podium speaking, turning sideways and
beginning peeing on the floor, then turning back towards the audience
and continuing the talk as if nothing inappropriate was done. Or, ...
suddenly throw in a sentence in Mayan language... then continue in
English. Hahhahah :)
It amounts to being on the left side of the intelligence curve, where
half of the Americans happily reside. RIP Carlin... I hear you.
I used the chess game in this story cause it is a much, much more
universal pastime, and very ancient. So ancient that terms associated
with it in German and Persian are almost the same! It goes that far back.
And I used only the movement types of its pieces, and nothing else. No
other rules whatsoever. And I assumed everybody knows that chessboard is
an 8 squares by 8 squares board, consisting of 64 squares on which these
pieces can move in their own ways if not blocked by another piece.
This story gives an opportunity - for the code monkeys really - to try
their use of loops within loops to solve clear but involved logical
situations. Several arrays are involved.
I intended to later add one more piece to the two! :-) And then one
more, and then one more... Then one would get very close to do what
computer chess developers do.
But if it has to stop in this forum, before even it started, then so be it.
If my memory serves me right, that's how Ken Thompson, the other of the
duo with Dennis Ritchie, who together developed Unix, became expert in
programming and OSs. I think he wanted to make his chess program faster
and faster. I think that was the whole deal for him behind all that work
:) He won some chess computer competitions too, I think.
But I still challenge everybody in this forum other than Farley, to
salvage their fucked up images as "programmers", by writing the baby
program that solves this problem in its most simple form, which is two
chess pieces. It is simple enough to be done by any code monkey, and yet
involved enough to be too time-consuming to do it "by hand".
So, each of you in COLA, are you even a code monkey? Farley says you
are, but I even doubt that. I think you're just foolish little loud
mouths as far as programming is concerned. So far, only Farley has
proved himself as a real programmer.
Speaking of a computer science class, the only one I took was in Summer
1979 to learn PL/I. No other languages were being taught in that Summer.
It was actually a graduate course in computer science, so a lot of
programming knowledge in the students were assumed by the professor in
its covering of that language. But for me it was the first touch of a
programming language. Thanks god the text was excellent. A dictionary
size big black book of almost 1000 pages. That was my source really, not
what was being discussed in the classroom. My understanding of the
verbal English hadn't matured yet and I'd muss most of what the prof was
so elaborately explaining. I suspect that the aim of that course was to
prepare the students on _creating_ better languages. But the text chosen
was very comprehensive, covering every programming skill, all the
sensitive areas, all the usual mistakes, all the important concepts
associated to programming in general and in that language. I read and
understood that book from begin to end!
There was also a 13 or so year old kid in the classroom sitting with his
father, and asking most of the questions! One of those who even in
middle school knew how to program well and had a talent for it.
The course was 5 semester hours! A heck of a lot of material packed into
a month and a half Summer term.