Doug Comer: How to Insult a Computer Scientist(cs.purdue.edu)
cs.purdue.edu
Doug Comer: How to Insult a Computer Scientist
http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/essay.criticize.html
21 comments
I've read this comment about ten times now and I still can't quite understand who was doing what to who. Am I going crazy?
Edit: I think I see now. The master's student was the distressed one.
Edit: I think I see now. The master's student was the distressed one.
Nope. The PhD was the distressed one.
Please rephrase. It sounds like an interesting anecdote if it were understandable.
M = Master's student
P = PhD candidate
M discovers P is wrong and says why.
P realizes his mistake and admits it like any honest academic would.
M keeps on going on like P is sticking to his guns.
P relents again, embarassed, since sticking to his guns would be anathema to his being.
M keeps on going on like P is sticking to his guns.
P tries harder to make it clear that he's relenting.
M keeps on going on like P is sticking to his guns...
I wish I could remember what they were talking about. M kept the other guy going for quite awhile and got him pretty riled up.
In essence, it was Trolling, but in person. (There is a good chance that this thread is trolling of the more common online variety.)
M discovers P is wrong and says why.
P realizes his mistake and admits it like any honest academic would.
M keeps on going on like P is sticking to his guns.
P relents again, embarassed, since sticking to his guns would be anathema to his being.
M keeps on going on like P is sticking to his guns.
P tries harder to make it clear that he's relenting.
M keeps on going on like P is sticking to his guns...
I wish I could remember what they were talking about. M kept the other guy going for quite awhile and got him pretty riled up.
In essence, it was Trolling, but in person. (There is a good chance that this thread is trolling of the more common online variety.)
I'm upmodding you because that was an incredibly clear and concise way to relay a conversation between two people in the third person.
Much better than: "And he was like 'blah blah' and then she was like 'bleh bleh' and then he replied 'blih blih.'"
I'm going to make an effort to use the 'assign letters to people' approach next time I try to say something like that.
Much better than: "And he was like 'blah blah' and then she was like 'bleh bleh' and then he replied 'blih blih.'"
I'm going to make an effort to use the 'assign letters to people' approach next time I try to say something like that.
Hmm... to my downmodders... I wasn't trolling... I actually appreciated the elegance of explaining a conversation that way.
Ah, okay. It was just the last sentence that threw me for a loop:
"Never have I seen someone so distressed at being told he was right."
From the anecdote I understood that the PhD candidate was being told he was wrong. Anyway, I promise I'm not a troll, at least not on purpose.
"Never have I seen someone so distressed at being told he was right."
From the anecdote I understood that the PhD candidate was being told he was wrong. Anyway, I promise I'm not a troll, at least not on purpose.
It's a bit subtler than that, even. The M doesn't tell P that he's wrong, he says why he's wrong. He never comes out and says P is wrong, he just lets everyone around "get it." P gets it too, and tries to back off. M keeps spinning the illusion that P is sticking to his guns.
I never realized how evil M was until I thought about it again.
I never realized how evil M was until I thought about it again.
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Would a computer scientist be insulted if you suggested he had wrapped a small amount of useful functionality in multiple and unnecessary levels of abstraction?
What if you suggested the same of his essays?
What if you suggested the same of his essays?
Is referring to engineers as "experimentalists" part of the joke?
In any case it was a good, light read that I'll take to heart in the next version of my insulting library.
http://insults.rubyforge.org/
In any case it was a good, light read that I'll take to heart in the next version of my insulting library.
http://insults.rubyforge.org/
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
I think it was Kissinger who said that academic politics are so intense because the stakes are so small. These kinds of essays get old after a while.
I think it was Kissinger who said that academic politics are so intense because the stakes are so small. These kinds of essays get old after a while.
Doug Comer seems to be quite disillusioned with academia - he has posted several similarly wry CS 'essays' on his website: http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/
Comer is just a straight out character. He's one of the few people who can legitimatly point at the internet and say "I made that".
Yes, he knows where to point to be pointing at the internet.
With that kind of work behind him it's hard to do anything else as important, and it's hard for anyone to criticize him.
Yes, he knows where to point to be pointing at the internet.
With that kind of work behind him it's hard to do anything else as important, and it's hard for anyone to criticize him.
There's something unrewarding about getting a research paper accepted because three reviewers thought it was good and having it only read by a hundred people.
Either that, or he just has a sense of humor about it.
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Never have I seen someone so distressed at being told he was right.