From: ara.t.howard@...
Date: 2006-08-10T23:00:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Been there, done that - language shootout

On Thu, 10 Aug 2006, Isaac Gouy wrote:

>
> I guess the user I worked with would have demanded you be replaced by
> someone willing to work with the requirements rather than produce a more
> convenient wrong answer :-)
>

you are right of course.  at my present job this has been brought up in the
past by others.  however, it's a powerful argument to assert (and then follow
through) that you can be 2-3 times more productive using the most efficient
problem solving approach available.  in fact, i've gone through two rounds of
this but, instead of getting laid off, the other programers were - nothing is
as convincing to manangement and funding sources as finished, working, and
correct programs produced ahead of schedule.  as it stands now our past group
of three is now just me and we are still making deadlines.  so, sometimes the
wrong answer is later found to be right.

in any case i understand that there are sometimes requirements and that they
are almost always arbitrary, it's just that in the case of the test requiring
a specific random generator the requirement is bordering on arcane since the
benchmarks claim to test specific programs but this requirement makes fasta
actually test two and, from a logical standpoint, the concept is flawed since
requiring 'specific random numbers' is an oxymoron.  i agree with the poster
that said the answer should have been tested to be within a tolerance to
neatly sidestep this ultimately unimportant (wrt to the overall shootout
which, unlike some others i find useful) issue.

regards.

-a
-- 
to foster inner awareness, introspection, and reasoning is more efficient than
meditation and prayer.
- h.h. the 14th dali lama