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Date:	Sun, 4 Jan 2004 08:38:47 PST8
From:	Peter Skye <pskye@peterskye.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: QA equals testing, Part One:Detection

Content Type: text/plain

Bob wrote:
>
> I said the programmer did not need to know the hardware
> instruction set, I never said the programmer did not need
> to know the basics of the operating system he is using.

And I disagree. My own financial optimization software is all written
high-level and specifically avoids doing calculations which take "a lot
of time", and it does this by splitting numeric values into components
and then doing the calculations with the components. It's a lot faster
this way and couldn't have been done without an understanding of the
hardware instruction set.

> I had some college students living next door [who] were
> expected to write a program. They were given the input
> and output file name and told what transformation was
> to be done. You do not need to know the hardware or
> operating system to write the program.

But this is "Hello World" stuff, Bob. Yes, there are plenty of simple
programs. And then there are the ones which college students shouldn't
be assigned to, no matter _what_ language they are using. (As for the
few hot-shot college students who _can_ handle such robust programs, the
ones I've known _did_ know the hardware instruction set.)

- Peter

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