Who gets higher salary a Java Programmer or a C++ Programmer?

[LR]

[ snip ]

It's less clear to me, perhaps because I don't know enough about them
that psychology and sociology are sciences.

Is this where someone should mention the joke(?) about how anything
with "science" in its name isn't one ..... As I heard it, the
is-it-a-joke continues along these lines: "Think about it --
social science? political science? hm, computer science?"

Good one!

Not taking sides in this argument, mostly lurking and observing
with interest.

That's good to know.

LR

 

[LR]

I'm a doctor.

Very amusing.

I can't recall who said it,
I know I never read it,
but here's a grand quote: "The law is blunt instrument."

You may want to search for it at google.


IANAL

LR

 

[Tom Anderson]

It depends on what the application is. Someone writing a pay
program in Cobol isn't very far from the brick layer.

Or, in the java world, someone writing a straightforward CRUD application
which just puts a web interface on a database.

tom

 

[LR]

If the client has asked for an analysis then presumably the bridge
already exists and the project is simply to measure what the client wants
measured or inspected.

Or it could be that this particular work is being subcontracted?

If the bridge doesn't exist then its a design project.

The engineer who is contracted for the work, might not know that.

Don't forget that all major civil engineering projects are one-off
structures: its very unlikely that anybody has previously built this type
of object on this spot using the specified materials and methods.

Yes. In that way, I think that software development is like engineering.
Lots of people make word processors but very few with the same
language or interface.

I'm not a civil engineer, but deck loadings would be determined entirely
by traffic predictions and the bridge building regulations in force at
the site. These are design constraints rather that things to be analysed.

Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. The design would be analyzed to see if
it meant those design constraints, wouldn't it?

Same considerations apply, except that an analysis of the effect of water
on the mid-stream supports is most likely to involve divers making an
inspection after the bridge has been in place long enough to have settled
down and for flow disturbances from the supports to have modified the
river bed.

But there would be upfront analysis of the water on the supports,
wouldn't there? Perhaps even models built?

I would imagine that would be very specialized work, and a bridge
designer might not have all those facilities in house. If so, then I
guess there's some interesting opportunity for passing on only partial
information about how the supports might deform under high wind conditions.

LR

 

[Tom Anderson]

That's been done for Algol 68,

A machine that ran Algol 68 *source*? That sounds fascinating - could you
tell me any more about it?

so in theory you could write a C++ interpreter, but it would probably be
complex and slow. Doing this wouldn't sidestep any of the correctness
issues posed by the compiler and, indeed, would probably add some
extras.

Yes, i struggle to imagine how you could do it without having what would
effectively be software somewhere in the middle.

Languages like FORTH are more plausibly implemented in hardware.

I don't think anybody could design and build hardware that could act
directly on a C++ source file (or any other language for that matter)
but in any case doing that would be hideously expensive and you'd end up
with hardware that could only run one particular version of one
programming language. You want Java or COBOL as well? Thats two more
chunks of hardware to be built from the ground up.

Since there's at least one JVM written in C++, not so.

tom

 

[LR]

The Four Color Theorem is an enjoyable and clear example of
mathematics describing a physical phenomenon.

I don't think anyone ever, or at least not since Newton, suggested that
quite a bit of math wasn't invented (or discovered, or whatever word
will suffice here, because I read somewhere, I don't remember where,
that this is under some debate too) in order to describe real world
phenomena.

But even if that is the case, the math doesn't have to be about
something real.

The Four Color Theorem may have been proven to answer a real world
question, but did the proof use a map of the counties of Texas?

LR

 

[Lew]

IANAL

IAAL.

 

[LR]

I guess some applications don't require much design in general.

I don't think that payroll is one of those. Payroll is one of those
apps with an "arbitrary" set of rules to follow. Things like the place
an individual works, where they reside, what kind of work they do,
possibly even their physical characteristics, might all make a
difference to how the app should handle that case.

Payroll is also different from some kinds of engineering apps, and I
suspect games as well, in that your results had better work to the penny
or cent or farthing. Otherwise angry hourly workers with pitchforks and
torches will show up at your cubicle. There's no margin of error for
safety, either the compensation and deductions are right or not.

And I suspect that lots of, well, let's call them "bricks and mortar"
apps, have to work this way. Imagine for example the work for figuring
the basis points for tax purposes for a sale of AT&T stock, where much
of it was purchased in some sort of reinvestment plan and where some of
the purchased stock has already been sold.

Honestly, I don't understand why anyone would think why someone doing
these apps is close to being what is implied here by "brick layer",
unless the person writing the app is doing it completely by the seat of
their pants.

No one speaks of an engineer who works on nuts and bolts as being close
to a brick layer. So I'm curious about this, because I don't understand it.

But then, the one of the few people I've met who was working on payroll
and whose programming skills were described by other people working with
him in a somewhat derogatory manner had a background in mech engineering.

I may
have to concede the point simply because of my lack of experience. I
have only ever worked in the video game industry.

Full of its own set of complications, I'd bet.

LR

 

[Martin Gregorie]

Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. The design would be analyzed to see if
it meant those design constraints, wouldn't it?

I'm guessing here, but I think it would be designed so it doesn't
resonate as an integral part of the design phase, which could easily be
an iterative process, rather than having recognisable 'design' and
'analyse' phases.

If structural analysis was subcontracted during the design that's not, in
principle, different from passing that section of the job to a specialist
within the design team.

But there would be upfront analysis of the water on the supports,
wouldn't there? Perhaps even models built?

One would hope so, but the unexpected can happen. Suppose the bridge is
downstream of a volcano and a lahar had occurred. For an example, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangiwai_disaster

or better yet, Google for "tangiwai disaster" and look at the image
results. This is the sort of thing that can't be readily calculated in
advance, since the composition and volume of the flow will vary between
events on the same mountain and (I think) between successive events in
the same stream bed.

I would imagine that would be very specialized work, and a bridge
designer might not have all those facilities in house. If so, then I
guess there's some interesting opportunity for passing on only partial
information about how the supports might deform under high wind
conditions.

If wind speeds at the site are known, and weather records should be able
to provide that data in much of the world, wind loadings and safety
margins are calculable.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

[ snip ]

BTW, Cheney should not have been rubbished for his "unknown unknowns":

Nitpick: Wasn't that Donald Rumsfeld, and the wording was slightly
different .... Or maybe they both said something along those lines.

Yes, you're right. It was a longer statement but 'unknown unknowns' was
part of it and IIRC that was the bit the meeja picked on as a
particularly stupid thing to say.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

A machine that ran Algol 68 *source*? That sounds fascinating - could
you tell me any more about it?

No, an interpreter: http://www.xs4all.nl/~jmvdveer/algol.html

I haven't tried using it, but I maintain an interest since back in 1977 I
rewrote the George 3 job accounting program in Algol 68R and I liked the
language a lot.

Yes, i struggle to imagine how you could do it without having what would
effectively be software somewhere in the middle.

You might choose to microcode it, even though thats not really a hardware
implementation, since that's good way to handle complex machine
architectures at a much lower level than the JVM.

The ancient Burroughs B6700 was a classic example: each language it ran
had its own specialised VM though they were still compiled languages: it
used a byte-addressed VM, optimised for string operations for COBOL and a
word-addressed stack oriented VM for running Algol 60 and FORTRAN. It
doesn't take a lot of imagination to generalize that into a set of VMs
that could interpret source code.

Languages like FORTH are more plausibly implemented in hardware.

FORTH is dead easy: the 6809 port has about 100 machine code instructions
making up the 20-30 lowest level words that form the guts of the
interpreter. Everything else is written in pure FORTH and interpreted at
run time. Unfortunately, its one of the two classic examples of a write-
only language (APL is the other) and not helped by the attitude that
"real FORTH programmers don't write comments and keep all variables on
the stack".

 

[LR]

What engineering discipline is related to string theory?

String theory is part of physics. Physics is related to at least a few
of the engineering disciplines. I don't think that "string theory"
qualifies as a science, anymore than say, "gravitational theory" does.

LR

 

[Martin Gregorie]

Wait a second. You've taken a very high level view of the movie, and a
low level view of the engineering project. If you took the same high
level view as you did with the movie, then all an engineering project
has to do is be under budget and satisfy the client.

An engineering project also has to meet performance and durability
criteria. Kindly define their equivalents for a film. I can't think of
any.

 

[Keith H Duggar]

I don't think anyone ever, or at least not since Newton, suggested that
quite a bit of math wasn't invented (or discovered, or whatever word
will suffice here, because I read somewhere, I don't remember where,
that this is under some debate too) in order to describe real world
phenomena.

Your audacity is remarkable. How can you possibly know what
all others since the time of Newton have suggested?! And the
"I read somewhere, I don't remember where" repeatedly added
to your comments is entirely pointless, contributing nothing
of value of your statements. Why bother making such reckless
or pointless statements at all? The above paragraph would
have been far more appropriate and accurate as the following
simple sentence:

"I understand that quite a bit of math describes real world
phenomena."

But even if that is the case, the math doesn't have to be about
something real.

Nor does E=mc^2 "have to be about something real". It just
so happens that it corresponds to something "real" (whatever
real means to you). Furthermore, some mathematics develops
long before it finds application to something "real". That
order of discovery makes absolutely no logical difference
as to how "real" the mathematics is. The reason I say that
is simple: a mathematical construct either does or does not
correspond to a "real" construct in this Universe regardless
of how long (if ever) it takes humans to figure that out.

The Four Color Theorem may have been proven to answer a real world
question, but did the proof use a map of the counties of Texas?

Its method of proof is entirely irrelevant since science
does not require "proof"; it requires testing. The Four Color
Theorem was a well tested and practical "fact" long before it
was mathematically proved. (Ironically, given the context of
this thread, it was "proved" using a combination of theory
and computational enumeration.)

KHD

 

[John B. Matthews]

Are you sure about this in the US? From what I know, almost
every physician in the US is an AMA member, but I was unaware
that it was a requirement to be a member.

In Maryland, at least, the requirement isn't to be an AMA member
but to be board-certified by the State Board of Medical Examiners.
(They also certify acupuncturists, making acupuncture a
full-fledged medical profession in Maryland.) Part of the
certification requirement is to have an appropriate academic
degree.

Same in Delaware:[/QUOTE]
[...]

Indeed, each of the United States has one or more licensing boards that
regualte physicians, surgeons, nurses and allied health care
professionals. Although the details vary from state to state, all
specify some minimum education (e.g. a recognized medical school), a
licensing examination (e.g. NMBE, FLEX), and some evidence of
post-graduate experience (e.g. internship, residency).

Most states offer reciprocity for licensees in other states, but a
separate application is required.

All states require continuing post-graduate education as a condition of
license renewal. This requirement is usually met by some combination of
approved formal coursework, often available on-line or by mail, and
informal experience, e.g. reading peer-reviewed journals or preparing
teaching materials.

Beyond the minimum requirements for licensure, national associations
representing medical specialties may certify diplomates of approved
post-graduate training programs based on specialty examinations. Hence,
a licensed physician in some state may also be "board-certified" by the
American Academy of Family Physicians or the American Academy of
Pediatrics.

Certain newly formed boards often have some kind of "grandfather" clause
that modifies one or more requirements for existing practitioners. This
is then phased out as additional, qualified instructors become available.

[...]

 

[LR]

[snip] science
does not require "proof"; it requires testing.

Testing of things that are observable in the real world?

The Four Color
Theorem was a well tested and practical "fact" long before it
was mathematically proved.

I remember being taught in geometry class that points and lines, in the
sense that geometry uses the terms, are not real and do not exist.

While I suspect that much of plane geometry developed from observation,
it requires proof, not testing of something observable.

LR

 

[Lew]

I remember being taught in geometry class that points and lines, in the
sense that geometry uses the terms, are not real and do not exist.

Of course they exist, or we wouldn't even be able to talk about them. One
could argue that mathematical existence is stronger and more real than
physical existence.

The discussion of the nature of being as such, i.e., what exists and doesn't
exist, was the subject of one of the most fascinating and enduringly relevant
courses I took at university.

Even more relevant is the question of applied ontology - how one can empower
oneself through insight into the nature of being as such.

When you assert that points and lines don't exist, you start down a slippery
slope that in the Usenet context is unlikely to resolve much. On the flip
side one could argue that quanta, quarks and the like don't exist, or perhaps
that I don't exist and you are actually arguing with yourself. In fact, with
respect to physical existence, quantum mechanics tells us that nothing
absolutely exists, only probabilistically. I subscribe to the notion that
existence is just the Red King's dream, and when he wakes up we'll all vanish.

 

[Keith H Duggar]

[snip] science
does not require "proof"; it requires testing.

Testing of things that are observable in the real world?

Observation is required. Neither "things" nor a "real world"
need be defined (if you can even define them suitably).

In the most pedantic form, a scientific hypothesis consists
of a detailed description of an experimental setup, methods,
conditions, procedures, etc and a predicted observation. In
practice such details are not pedantically spelled out since
there is a large shared body of auxiliary knowledge that we
can rely upon to communicate the details. For example, if we
hypothesize that the boiling point of water depends on salt
concentration we might specify the hypothesis thusly:

1) dissolve sodium chloride in distilled water to prepare
salt solutions at concentrations of 2.0, 1.0, 0.5, 0.25,
and 0.125 molar.

2) for each solution pour 150ml into a clean 250ml Pyrex
beaker. Use an arm clamp to suspend a thermometer in the
center of the fluid and drop a magnetic stir bar into the
beaker.

3) Use a hot plate with low stir to heat the solution to a
vigorous boil.

4) Once the temperature stabilizes note the reading.

There is a great deal of assumed common knowledge in such a
description. For example, it does not explain what distilled
water and sodium chloride are nor how to produce them. It does
not explain how to construct a thermometer nor a Pyrex beaker.
Etc, etc, etc. One could write thousands of pages describing
the details of such a simple experiment as this and still not
cover every possible detail or objection.

But then, it is not necessary to cover every detail for it is
by the very process of science that we refine our descriptions
and methods when needed. Science strives to develop a coherent
body of knowledge, not an absolute body of knowledge.

I remember being taught in geometry class that points and
lines, in the sense that geometry uses the terms,

Even very young children know how to draw maps on a piece
of paper and how to color them. Hopefully your high-school
geometry class did not rob you of that simple ability?

are not real and do not exist.

What does "real" mean? What does "exist" mean? No matter,
whatever those words mean science does not concern itself
with such definitions nor other metaphysical meaning.

While I suspect that much of plane geometry developed from
observation, it requires proof,

"it requires proof" -- "requires" for what purpose? Geometric
rules were discovered and used successfully for thousands of
years in the Ancient world before they were "proved". Again,
science does not require "proof" no matter how many times you
claim that it does.

not testing of something observable.

Testing of observables such as this pyramid has the right
height, Venus rose when expected, the rocket reached orbit,
etc is what science requires; it does not require "proof".

Do you understand these points now?

KHD

 

[LR]

What does "real" mean? What does "exist" mean?

Would saying that points and lines, as the terms are used in geometry,
are abstract and/or conceptual, work for you?

No matter,

I think it's an important distinction.



LR

 

[Keith H Duggar]

Would saying that points and lines, as the terms are used in
geometry, are abstract and/or conceptual, work for you?

Work for me to what end? It seems that you have some place you
want to get to. Some notion you want to persuade us to believe.
I remain as a participant in this thread solely to help raise
you from your admitted ignorance of engineering. In other words
to educate you. I have absolutely no desire to be lured into an
evergreen debate of semantics and metaphysics.

Now, there is much substance in my most recent posts that you
did not respond to. I suggest you contemplate them further and
then respond by pointing out explicitly what you have learned
or now agree with and your remaining questions of substance.

I think it's an important distinction.

It is far more important that you stop snipping and responding
to conjunctions and instead respond substantively to the entire
substance of posts, if you were serious about wanting to learn.

I must say you are demonstrating the lack of any such intention
in this and many of you other posts. Phrases like "Ok, perhaps
you got me", "work for you?", "the particular idea I am trying
to explain here", "I've gotten .. over the past apprx 35 years",
"I don't know anyone who ...", "I don't think anyone ever, or at
least not since Newton ...", etc are red flags.

KHD