[volunteers] Fwd: Re: Requesting Speaker for Silicon Valley Linux User Group (SVLUG) Monthly Meeting

[Jesse Monroy]

To all,
Sorry about that last BLANK email.

On 5/15/12, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> Quoting Yudhvir Singh Sidhu (mehmasarja at gmail.com):
>
>> What's wrong with the "wishful thinking" group mentioned below?
>
> Change can be good.
>
> I've spent a lot of time closely observing how change occurs, and how it
> does not.
>

First I want to dispel this repeated theme of "wishful thinking".
I did NOT interpret Brian's comment (or message if you like)
as "wishful thinking". Software engineers do not think with
"wishful thoughts". By in large, thinking runs along the lines of
measuring and boundary checking, then rechecking.

I know of a very good engineer - which many in the CABAL know.
In the 1970s & 1980s, he was a software programmer for the
State of Oregon. His job was error handling and exception
handling. His stand standard method of operations was:

1) save the current value of all variables
2) zero all variables
3) run operation needed.
4) re-set all variables to previous values

What may not be obvious is that he saved the state of the
machine before he ran his operations, then he reset
the state of machine. This is thoughtful programming.
This is not taught, nor expected of today's engineers.

Why is this not expected? Because the state of the
environment has changed. Today it is standard
practice for compilers and interpreters to set to ZERO
or Null the initial values of all variables.

When I started programming 30+ years ago, it
was considered "wishful thinking" to have all
variables set to an initial value. As such, software
engineers see this in a practical light.

Jesse