As an engineer
with more than twenty years of experience, I found
what you said insulting and misinformed.
I agree.
I do and I don't.
Certainly you two are right in that CPU power is a tool, useful for
many purposes, and only a stupid engineer disdains a useful tool
without good reason.
But on the other hand, Tony is also right in that CPU crunch is no
substitute for intelligent thought. All the computrons in the world
won't help someone who can't think coherently about how to use them.
As I read it, Tony was - rightly - sneering at the kind of intellectual
laziness that doesn't bother thinking about problems and assumes that
they can be hit with enough CPU cycles, and if not, why, then the
hardware must be insufficient. There's a world of difference between
that and recognizing when using a stupid algorithm instead of a smart
algorithm is the right answer because there are enough spare cycles
available to support the resulting gain in, say, programmer time, which
is the sort of thing I see you as - again, rightly - supporting.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
