We are just like C
September 26, 2008 – 12:06 amDear blog, it’s been long since I last talked to you, but I felt like doing it tonight. This is the unfaithful transcription and translation of a chat I had tonight.
me: Math sucks.
mister M: That’s not what you told me 10 minutes ago when talking about the number theory described in GEB.
me: You don’t know when something is beautifull and cool or when it is bloated and ugly and you only learn it that way cause it was discovered that way.
me: You’re not good enough to know.
me: The two cases exist.
Mister M.: Hehe, I think there is a limit to ugliness.
Mister M.: When you reach it, people snap and agree, “ok let’s change that”.
Mister M.: But the limit must be pretty far away.
me: Math are good when you’re able to say: your concepts sucks, they are equivalent to this beautiful concept which is very powerfull, so let’s not talk about your shits anymore.
me: And I agree with you there is a practical limit, if you simplify old concepts your students won’t understand anything about those official old concepts. So for a new concept to work it must be simple and powerfull enough for your students to gain enough time from using it to be able to translate back into the old concepts within that gained time.
me: Actually I read a post about this recently, well not exactly that it was about programming languages, for a new language to work it must solve a problem that is harder that the time you need to learn this new language.
Mister M.: It was saying bad stuff about C I’m sure.
me: No. At all. Hum I don’t remember, but I don’t think so.
Mister M.: I’m just on the defensive.
(Mister M likes the C language a lot, and what I just said could be a good argument to say that C is still here cause it was here first.)
me: Hehe, I understand.
(And I do like to criticize C)
me: Survival of the fittest meme, or maybe not fittest but already in place.
Mister M.: Hehe.
me: It’s the same for animals: they start from a niche and only from there they can spread.
Mister M.: Haha how we blew up all the other species !
me: And now we’re in place they have no chance. We’re just like C.
Mister M.: Clear, C has nothing to do in many places where it is used.
Mister M.: Like us in antactica.
Mister M.: Or in the Arizona desert.
me: Well this deserves a blog entry. And I’m gonna twist all your words …
END
PS
me: How do you translate “Je suis juste sur la défensive” in english ? I’m just on the defence ?
Mister M.: It sounds strange.
Mister M.: WordRefence says on the defensive http://www.wordreference.com/fren/defensive
me: Arg. It sounds french, come on, tell me your sentense in english.
Mister M.: I’m on the defensive.
me: lol, ok fine.
Mister M.: English is french.