Re: [tlug] [OT] Good IT Resume

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2007, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> No, my point is that the map is not the territory.

Hm? For a computer program, the map *is* the territory, or at least can
be. The code is the thing itself and also, if sufficiently concise and
clear, the best accurate description of the thing.

This paper:

    http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~apt/cs457_2005/hudak-jones.pdf

discusses prototyping in a dozen or so different languages a
specification provided by the Naval Surface Warfare Center for a
Geometric Region Server. It contains a quote that both inspires me and
perhaps communicates better than I can what I'm trying to get at here:

    In conducting the independent design review at Intermetrics, there
    was a signifcant sense of disbelief. We quote from [CHJ93]: "It is
    significant that Mr. Domanski, Mr. Banowetz and Dr. Brosgol were all
    surprised and suspicious when we told them that Haskell prototype
    P1 (see appendix B) is a complete tested executable program. We
    provided them with a copy of P1 without explaining that it was a
    program, and based on preconceptions from their past experience,
    they had studied P1 under the assumption that it was a mixture of
    requirements specification and top level design. They were convinced
    it was incomplete because it did not address issues such as data
    structure design and execution order."

In the end, I suppose you can take the approach that "this can't work,"
and succeed in doing something in a poorer way. Or you can try to do it
a better way, fail to fully achieve it, and yet still be more successful
in that failure.

cjs
--
Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974
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