Quote o' the Day: Age and Syntax Directed Editing

Posted on July 13, 2016 by Tommy McGuire
Labels: software development, quote

Laurence Tratt, writing An Editor for Composed Programs, came up with this interesting factoid regarding syntax-directed editing, a bizarre remnant of something horrible that the ’80s have to answer for:

I ended by wondering if SDE (Syntax Directed Editing) might be the solution. What I’ve discovered is that SDE is a wonderful way of guessing someone’s age: those under 40 or so have rarely heard of SDE; and those above 45 [2] tend to either convulse in fits of laughter when it’s mentioned, become very afraid, or assume I’m an idiot. In other words, those who know of SDE have a strong reaction to it (which, almost invariably, is against SDE).

[2] I’m not sure if my sample size of 40-45 year olds is insufficient, or whether they really are the “inbetween” generation when it comes to SDE. Fortunately, I will sleep soundly enough without knowing the answer to this particular question.

His statement is entirely true. I note that I am older than 45.

active directory applied formal logic ashurbanipal authentication books c c++ comics conference continuations coq data structure digital humanities Dijkstra eclipse virgo electronics emacs goodreads haskell http java job Knuth ldap link linux lisp math naming nimrod notation OpenAM osgi parsing pony programming language protocols python quote R random REST ruby rust SAML scala scheme shell software development system administration theory tip toy problems unix vmware yeti
Member of The Internet Defense League
Site proudly generated by Hakyll.