I was just surfing reddit and this exchange with Walter made me LOL, talking about students who learn programming for the first time in college:

Walter: Why would you say that? Very few of them actually even studied CS - they learned programming on the side. As did I, my degree is in mechanical engineering. I learned programming from reading DEC reference manuals and annoying my friends with idiotic questions like "what's a register?"
Starting programming in college is not too late at all.

Kasper-Hauser: I think it was too late in your case judging from the fruits it has borne. D should stand for dumb. I'm convinced your're a plant from the mechanical engineering cartel trying to dumb down our industry.
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2tou4y/techs_high_barrier_to_entry_for_the/co171cp

Skimming the guy's other comments now, I guess he's a big Haskell fan, and somehow looks down on D.

I've often thought that it's precisely because Walter is not a CS grad and has a real engineering background that D is so good, particularly since it means he's less likely to go chasing the CS fad of the moment.  Also, I'd guess that's where his pragmatic bent with the language comes from and must influence his particular sense of usability and technical design.  We've certainly all heard enough about how Boeing does it, particularly when it comes to failsafe reliability. ;)

On Tuesday, 27 January 2015 at 01:41:31 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> I was just surfing reddit and this exchange with Walter made me LOL, talking about students who learn programming for the first time in college:
>
> Walter: Why would you say that? Very few of them actually even studied CS - they learned programming on the side. As did I, my degree is in mechanical engineering. I learned programming from reading DEC reference manuals and annoying my friends with idiotic questions like "what's a register?"
> Starting programming in college is not too late at all.
>
> Kasper-Hauser: I think it was too late in your case judging from the fruits it has borne. D should stand for dumb. I'm convinced your're a plant from the mechanical engineering cartel trying to dumb down our industry.
> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2tou4y/techs_high_barrier_to_entry_for_the/co171cp
>
> Skimming the guy's other comments now, I guess he's a big Haskell fan, and somehow looks down on D.
>
> I've often thought that it's precisely because Walter is not a CS grad and has a real engineering background that D is so good, particularly since it means he's less likely to go chasing the CS fad of the moment.  Also, I'd guess that's where his pragmatic bent with the language comes from and must influence his particular sense of usability and technical design.  We've certainly all heard enough about how Boeing does it, particularly when it comes to failsafe reliability. ;)

Unfortunately, even Boeing isn't what it used to be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

On Tuesday, 27 January 2015 at 01:41:31 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> I was just surfing reddit and this exchange with Walter made me LOL, talking about students who learn programming for the first time in college:
>
> Walter: Why would you say that? Very few of them actually even studied CS - they learned programming on the side. As did I, my degree is in mechanical engineering. I learned programming from reading DEC reference manuals and annoying my friends with idiotic questions like "what's a register?"
> Starting programming in college is not too late at all.
>
> Kasper-Hauser: I think it was too late in your case judging from the fruits it has borne. D should stand for dumb. I'm convinced your're a plant from the mechanical engineering cartel trying to dumb down our industry.
> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2tou4y/techs_high_barrier_to_entry_for_the/co171cp

Reddit comments are barely worth reading, much less giving a response. Not exactly Hacker News lack of intelligence, but lots of them you just read the first sentence, downvote, and move on.

On 1/26/2015 6:38 PM, Zach the Mystic wrote:
> Unfortunately, even Boeing isn't what it used to be:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

One thing that one learns when working on engineering projects is journalists have zero engineering and mathematical knowledge, and what they write about engineering is full of hysteria, ignorance, and misinformation.

BTW, in the 1960s, journalists all thought the 747 wouldn't even fly (too big). Early 747s also had major engine problems. They were fixed.

On 1/26/2015 5:41 PM, Joakim wrote:
> I've often thought that it's precisely because Walter is not a CS grad and has a
> real engineering background that D is so good, particularly since it means he's
> less likely to go chasing the CS fad of the moment.  Also, I'd guess that's
> where his pragmatic bent with the language comes from and must influence his
> particular sense of usability and technical design.  We've certainly all heard
> enough about how Boeing does it, particularly when it comes to failsafe
> reliability. ;)

Andrei has a PhD in CS. I think we make a complementary pair, me with an engineering perspective and Andrei with a scientific perspective.

On Tuesday, 27 January 2015 at 02:52:44 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 1/26/2015 6:38 PM, Zach the Mystic wrote:
>> Unfortunately, even Boeing isn't what it used to be:
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os
>
> One thing that one learns when working on engineering projects is journalists have zero engineering and mathematical knowledge, and what they write about engineering is full of hysteria, ignorance, and misinformation.
>
> BTW, in the 1960s, journalists all thought the 747 wouldn't even fly (too big). Early 747s also had major engine problems. They were fixed.

Yeah, I don't know. But unless they staged the whole thing, this report was pretty damaging and depressing. I'm not sure what to think. I don't want to jump to conclusions.

On Tuesday, 27 January 2015 at 02:38:17 UTC, Zach the Mystic wrote:
> On Tuesday, 27 January 2015 at 01:41:31 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> I was just surfing reddit and this exchange with Walter made me LOL, talking about students who learn programming for the first time in college:
>>
>> Walter: Why would you say that? Very few of them actually even studied CS - they learned programming on the side. As did I, my degree is in mechanical engineering. I learned programming from reading DEC reference manuals and annoying my friends with idiotic questions like "what's a register?"
>> Starting programming in college is not too late at all.
>>
>> Kasper-Hauser: I think it was too late in your case judging from the fruits it has borne. D should stand for dumb. I'm convinced your're a plant from the mechanical engineering cartel trying to dumb down our industry.
>> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2tou4y/techs_high_barrier_to_entry_for_the/co171cp
>>
>> Skimming the guy's other comments now, I guess he's a big Haskell fan, and somehow looks down on D.
>>
>> I've often thought that it's precisely because Walter is not a CS grad and has a real engineering background that D is so good, particularly since it means he's less likely to go chasing the CS fad of the moment.  Also, I'd guess that's where his pragmatic bent with the language comes from and must influence his particular sense of usability and technical design.  We've certainly all heard enough about how Boeing does it, particularly when it comes to failsafe reliability. ;)
>
> Unfortunately, even Boeing isn't what it used to be:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

FYI, Qatari Airway's GCEO Al Baker has repeatedly publicly stated his opinion(on disliking) Boeing. Both Al Jazeera and Qatari Airway are owned by the Qatari government.
Take an entire box of salt with that "documentary."

On Tuesday, 27 January 2015 at 03:41:51 UTC, weaselcat wrote:
> FYI, Qatari Airway's GCEO Al Baker has repeatedly publicly stated his opinion(on disliking) Boeing. Both Al Jazeera and Qatari Airway are owned by the Qatari government.
> Take an entire box of salt with that "documentary."

I won't. If what the documentary says is true, Al Baker has a very good reason for disliking Boeing. I don't know if it is, but it's a pretty great staging job if it's not.

On Tuesday, 27 January 2015 at 01:41:31 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> Skimming the guy's other comments now, I guess he's a big Haskell fan, and somehow looks down on D.

That's normal for haskell fans to look down on other languages, which don't embrace as much CS. Do you see it for the first time?

On Tuesday, 27 January 2015 at 20:12:17 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> On Tuesday, 27 January 2015 at 01:41:31 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> Skimming the guy's other comments now, I guess he's a big Haskell fan, and somehow looks down on D.
>
> That's normal for haskell fans to look down on other languages, which don't embrace as much CS. Do you see it for the first time?

Yeah, I've never really read reddit or hacker news, just D links from here mostly, certainly not any haskell sites.