[geeks] Doorbells

[Phil Stracchino]

Phil Stracchino wrote:
>     "Of course, you'd never use this algorithm in the real
>      world, because it propagates errors too badly."
> 
> Which is the point at which all of us computer scientists in the class 
> looked at each other in complete disbelief, and demanded to know why the 
> fuck he'd just wasted half the quarter in a numerical analysis class for 
> computer scientists on an algorithim that was totally worthless in the 
> real world.


Oh, and I forgot to add:  He didn't even then discuss WHY it propagated 
errors.  If he'd taken some time, after this revelation, to discuss 
*why* this algorithm wasn't useful, *what it was about the algorithm* 
that caused it to propagate errors so badly and how you could design a 
numerical algorithm to minimize error propagation, then that would 
actually have been useful and delivered some value.  But as it was, the 
entire first half of the quarter was a total waste of our time.  We did 
not get one single useful thing out of it.


-- 
   Phil Stracchino, CDK#2         ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
   Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
   alaric at caerllewys.net            alaric at metrocast.net
           It's not the years, it's the mileage.