[plt-scheme] Re: When does eqv? differ from eq? , from equal?

Well, I'm in the U.S. I don't mean to paint with too broad a stroke here,
but my comments reflect my own experience with development projects where
people end up focusing so much on tools or trendy methods (like UML and the
Rational Unified Process) that they don't stop and ask themselves what
problem they're trying to solve. Here's an example: in HL7 (an application
protocol frequently used in healthcare applications) there is often an
implicit assumption that messages will be received in the order sent with no
dropped or duplicate messages. That's often an appropriate constraint, but
sometimes each message together with its acknowledgment is an independent
unit of work, and there is no reason messages of a certain type cannot be
delivered out of order. Now,  message delivery can often be slow (as you can
imagine it would be, given the stop and waith protocol being employed). I've
suggested dropping the sequenced delivery constraint, or at the very least,
allowing a send window of more than one message in certain performance
critical applications. Now, I understand the importance of having a
consistent architecture and of being able to use "off the shelf" software.
But there are times when I just wish people could stop and think about the
problem and consider a relatively simple software solution instead of
investing in bandwidth with a new PVC (and note that bandwidth isn't evn the
problem here, it's latency!) or investing in a product that isn't really
needed.

Okay, I'll stop now (and wait).

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 2:54 PM, Grant Rettke <grettke at acm.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:33 AM, Greg Woodhouse
> <gregory.woodhouse at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm sure that all has to do with the perception (perhaps valid) that
> knowing
> > C is an essential job skill. But remember that these are first year
> > students:
>
> Since when do first year students get a say in anything?!
>
> > What bothers me is that professional developers focus so much on tools
> and
> > languages without really thinking critically about the problems they are
> > trying to solve.
>
> Is this in the entire world, or just the U.S.A.?
>
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