Re: TeX and Pascal [was Re: The joy of FORTRAN]

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 01/10/2024 17:37, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

On 2024-10-01, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
 

On 01/10/2024 15:57, Pancho wrote:
 

In essence just because you can do something clever, doesn't mean you
should.

 
That is what I loathed about compscis. As practising software engineers
we specialised in 'good clean workmanlike well documented and structured
code'.
Our job was to get the puter to do its job in the most understandable
and maintainable way.
Not to impress people with the elegance complexity and
incomprehensibility of our  REGEX statements.

 
Or recursion.  I've noticed that CS weenies are obsessed with recursion,
to the point of using it gratuitiously Just Because.
 

The only program I recall using it on was a bit of fun where I created a
maze.
I set a worm to munch out a tunnel with the limitations being it must
never eat a hole to the existing tunnel, or the spaces walls. Except at
the maze exit.
 
So at every coordinate, it randomly picked a direction, and tried to
munch. If it couldn't munch it would try another direction. If there was
no possible direction, it exited the recursed function. If there was a
possible new coordinate, it called itself with the new co-ordinates.
 
I think that is the *only* time I have used it.
 
Its very good for exploring all possibilities until they prove futile.
 
That's probably why CompSci like it,. They are the sort of academics who
end up in government
 
 
 

I use it a lot for processing trees. It’s really the only technique that
makes sense. Otherwise I try to avoid it.

--
Pete