Re: PG: Hackers and Painters

[Michael Livshin <address@hidden>]

Scott McKay <swm@itasoftware.com> writes:

> The system of apprentice-journeyman-master craftsman is
> well understood and books galore have been written on it.
>
> In my opinion, one of the great failures of the current
> practice of software is its failure to retain this model.

I suspect that this is the case with most fields that got established
after the modern school system became widespread (although only
"Computer Science" and EE come to mind readily).

that's also why the sense of history is so lacking in computing.  

(with-content (:anekdote)

if only I could go 10 years back in time and have my mentor introduce
me to Lisp (for example)!  instead I had the guy who taught us
computer graphics give us (me and my course mate) extra marks for
using reference-counted smart pointer class in the final project.
'cause I was so smart, you see, I've thought of using reference
counting all by myself.  so our program was ready among the very first
while others were busy debugging their memory leaks and crashes.  it
was in 1994.

)

OK, I'll stop whining.

-- 
I'm a Lisp variable -- bind me!