[ExI] mit's answer to the stanford ai class

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson
Subject: Re: [ExI] mit's answer to the stanford ai class

...

>...The problem is that self taught computer scientists frequently develop
really bad habits in programming style that are terribly difficult to break.
I have hired several very smart people who were self taught programmers, and
have always at least partially regretted the decision. In my experience,
particularly bad are Electrical Engineers turned programmers, because they
have pretty darn big egos, and think that their way of programming is
better. Sigh...

How well I know it.  In 2002, I had a crazy-smart physicist working with me.
I showed him how to use excel.  In 2002!  He thought it was the greatest
invention since sex.  That was the last we heard of him for months, as he
did what he was famous for doing: super obsessive laser beam study of a
topic.  He wrote some interesting software in the macro language.
Tragically only a short time later the medics discovered pancreatic cancer,
and he was gone within a few months.  I inherited his files.  So I reverse
engineered some of what he had done.  I found instances where he had written
out in macro code for a ton of functions that are available as spreadsheet
functions, such as the conversions of hex to decimal and decimal to binary,
etc.  Apparently had had somehow missed the complete list of spreadsheet
functions available, so he was hard coding a bunch of that stuff.  


>...BTW, loved Spike's contributions to this thread, but couldn't think of a
way to add much, other than maybe some comedic reference to Zen and the Art
of Motorcycle Maintenance... LOL  -Kelly


How did you know?  I looooved that book in college!  I recently paid a
buttload of money for an original edition.  ZAMM is the introspective
person's bible and guiding light!  I still think we should get a group
together and go swipe Pirsig's bike, before some thieving yahoo steals it.

Oh, wait...

spike