I'm an engineer, and spend a bit of time using engineering tools, some good, some bad. It seems that the bad tools are always the ones that get used the most. I'll put up a post later dealing with the worst tools ever- there are definitely more than enough to fill up a page or two!
Today, I found myself using Matlab at work (actually GNU octave, but whatever...). I was trying to do what would have been a fairly simple task in any normal programming language (C, Java, Python etc), and probably even some really crappy or hard to use languages (I could list some here... but I didn't)- comparing two strings. Yep, looking at a few characters to see if they are identical. Just four characters- thirty two bits. There's a pretty standard way to compare strings in languages: the strcmp, or string compare function. It's pretty simple: it looks at two strings, and tells you if they are different from one another. If you take the difference of two identical things, what's the difference? Well, if they are truly identical, there should be zero difference right? So two identical things have a difference of zero, thats what you get as the difference when you compare two identical objects. And if they are different, you should get something else, right (if the function works)? How bout a non-zero difference for two non-identical things? Does that make sense?
Mathworks has indeed reinvented the wheel. They decided to make it square this time- after all, square wheels must be better- they keep cars from rolling away when parked, and cars are parked most of the time, right? So square wheels are clearly better?
Well, not in our world- most cars have been designed for round wheels. And most programmers, and hundreds of programming languages think that comparison of two strings with no difference between them merits a zero response. But not mathworks. They like square wheels. They go against the flow. They ignore millions of man years of programmer experience, and design things their own way, including the historical strcmp.
So, to summarize, a sane language (and most non-sane languages) does this:
string s1 = "heres a sentence";
string s2 = "heres a more different sentence";
string s3 = "heres a sentence";
strcmp(s1, s2); // is nonzero
strcmp(s1, s3); // is zero
But matlab does this:
s1 = 'heres a sentence';
s2 = 'heres a more different sentence'
s3 = 'heres a sentence';
strcmp(s1, s2) % is zero despite these being the same
strcmp(s1, s3) % is nonzero?? Why??
Note: this matlab code won't work like you think it might- its simplified to make a point. Real string stuff in matlab is a bit more complicated due to its totally non-native string implementation, which is even more crappy than I have conveyed here...
Friday, August 29, 2008
My first post, and first posts
This is my first post (duh..).
When I started thinking about this (first) post, I immediately thought about what I've seen on other people's blogs. It seems like a good deal of people post about how the post is their first post (which is quite obvious to the reader) and seems like an unnecessary step. A first blog post is a first blog post, and since almost everybody posts the same thing ("This is my blog!" "I plan on writing regularly!" etc), why write it at all? Is this action just an exercise to allow the author to get use to their unfamiliar new blogging tools, or is there more of an explanation for this phenomenon?
For many people, the first post is as far as they get- they can't seem to make it past one post (like this, or this, or this), but for other people, it is often just a (weak) beginning. I'm really going to try to not let that happen. I am always bummed when somebody that has a good blog starts to neglect it, and they post less and less frequently, often with posts that say something about how they wish they blogged more (like this brilliant fellow here). The other side of this is that I do appreciate people that regularly post quality blog posts (like the Gerlts - Happy 3rd blog-o-versary!).
I'm planning on updating my blog on a regular basis, but probably not as often as some people do. Why not? Well, I really don't want to try to write unless I have something to say, which may be often, and may not. In my previous experiences, its not the lack of original thoughts or content, or interesting things to say that prevents me from writing out what I'm thinking- its more a lack of good, quality time in which my brain is functioning. I hope to find more of this time, especially now that the sun is going down earlier (so I won't be out and about as much). We'll see how things go.
So, with that I've got a slightly different post- I've made an observation and discussed it: First posts seem to be about first posts. And with that, I'll end this pioneering post, this maiden message, this initial inking, hopefully to move on soon to the next post (also with its own unique and post-worthy thought!).
When I started thinking about this (first) post, I immediately thought about what I've seen on other people's blogs. It seems like a good deal of people post about how the post is their first post (which is quite obvious to the reader) and seems like an unnecessary step. A first blog post is a first blog post, and since almost everybody posts the same thing ("This is my blog!" "I plan on writing regularly!" etc), why write it at all? Is this action just an exercise to allow the author to get use to their unfamiliar new blogging tools, or is there more of an explanation for this phenomenon?
For many people, the first post is as far as they get- they can't seem to make it past one post (like this, or this, or this), but for other people, it is often just a (weak) beginning. I'm really going to try to not let that happen. I am always bummed when somebody that has a good blog starts to neglect it, and they post less and less frequently, often with posts that say something about how they wish they blogged more (like this brilliant fellow here). The other side of this is that I do appreciate people that regularly post quality blog posts (like the Gerlts - Happy 3rd blog-o-versary!).
I'm planning on updating my blog on a regular basis, but probably not as often as some people do. Why not? Well, I really don't want to try to write unless I have something to say, which may be often, and may not. In my previous experiences, its not the lack of original thoughts or content, or interesting things to say that prevents me from writing out what I'm thinking- its more a lack of good, quality time in which my brain is functioning. I hope to find more of this time, especially now that the sun is going down earlier (so I won't be out and about as much). We'll see how things go.
So, with that I've got a slightly different post- I've made an observation and discussed it: First posts seem to be about first posts. And with that, I'll end this pioneering post, this maiden message, this initial inking, hopefully to move on soon to the next post (also with its own unique and post-worthy thought!).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
