Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Eric Sosman Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: A small challenge at beginner's level Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2017 18:12:24 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 28 Message-ID: References: <59839c36$0$1787$e4fe514c@newszilla.xs4all.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2017 22:08:20 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="5272023c8262ae9a407bed71fea83119"; logging-data="12076"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18eCKDv8mD1Uw2ZilOQAwfk" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.2.1 In-Reply-To: <59839c36$0$1787$e4fe514c@newszilla.xs4all.nl> Content-Language: en-US Cancel-Lock: sha1:1pOrnrmHowzmoFAh6vLljZDGqA8= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:37061 On 8/3/2017 5:57 PM, Silvio wrote: > On 03-08-17 12:46, Stefan Ram wrote: >> [... a silly challenge ...] > > Persisting in using a retarded formatting style is bad enough already. > Forcing it upon students is criminal. > > And it is a pointless exercise to boot. Programming is not about > exploring obscurities and extremities but about common sense and good > taste. You are teaching neither. Your students deserve a better teacher. Silvio's right. The language supports simpler, more direct, and much clearer ways to accomplish the given task, and it's just silly not to use those clearer, more direct, and simpler ways. "I will remove my own appendix, without anesthesia, using only a can opener, two teaspoons, and a jar of extra virgin olive oil" -- well, fine, how very clever, but ... why? When I was young and clever I figured out a way to mimic FORTRAN's DO loop with something called a "computed GOTO." I boasted of my cleverness to my teacher, whose lack of enthusiasm betrayed his near-instantaneous internal translation of "clever" to "stupid." Don't encourage this sort of cleverness; it's stupid. -- esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid Twelve hundred sixty-six days to go.