Re: [MacPerl] sorting arrays

[Richard Gordon <maccgi@bellsouth.net>]

At 00:01 -0400 6/17/1999, Ronald J Kimball wrote:
>Okay, let's see some Perl code that uses hashes to sort an array.  I am
>very intrigued by this idea.

If that was the idea... what I said was that I get by fine "using 
extremely ordinary hash and array techniques." That encompasses 
ordinary hash and array sorts, nes pas?

>
>We're not worthy.  We're not worthy.

>Possibly not, but my point was that nobody is going to care whether 
>it takes 32.3 seconds to do this instead of 40 seconds.


>Does this have a point?  Are you suggesting that you can either write brute
>force code that works well, or elegant code that doesn't, but no other
>combination?  Hmm...

Sure, if you want to do this stuff for a living, you need to get it 
out the door and running to the client's satisfaction in as short a 
timespan as possible. If he's happy, you're happy, period. If elegant 
code == fast_turn_around, that's great, but my experience has been 
that achieving anything beyond the project specs is purely a hobby.

>
> > Maybe Schwartzian Transform is cool and maybe it isn't, but it
> > doesn't seem likely to put any more money in your pocket in either
> > case.
>
>Maybe you still don't get it.  ;)

That's a possibility. Another is that I have seen why programmers 
habitually fail to meet the expectations of the people who pay them 
because they get off on theoretical tangents that don't yield any 
tangible benefits to the suits.The suits don't care how something 
gets done, they just want it to run more or less like they envisioned 
and take it for granted that everything is going to work.

<RANT>
In fact, that's the central problem with Java and its growing 
reputation as a black hole as far as I can discern. It is slow as mud 
and doesn't do anything that couldn't be done faster in another way, 
but companies have spent  millions, if not billions, on one stillborn 
project after another. Is there really anything that you could do 
with Java that couldn't be done better (and more crudely in a sense) 
on the server side in Perl or Python and on the client side in 
Javascript? My ultimate point is K.I.S.S. and whoever pays the bills 
will be grinning once things are running.
</RANT>


Richard Gordon
--------------------
Gordon Consulting & Design
Database Design/Scripting Languages
mailto:richard@richardgordon.net
http://www.richardgordon.net
770.565.8267

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