Arthur Norman Programming & Notes

The next 2 quotes are taken from the middle of notes for various subjects, recommending certain books as course texts.

Software Engineering ...

I want to direct you towards the Mythical Man Month, if only for the cover illustration of the La Brea Tar Pits ⁽¹⁾ with the vision that programmers can become trapped just as the Ice Age mammoth and so on were.

¹ You may not be aware that the tar pits are in the middle of a thoroughly built-up part of Los Angeles, and when visiting them you can try to imagine some of the local school-children venturing too far and getting bogged down, thus luring their families, out for a week-end picnic, to a sticky doom.

Complexity Theory ...

Utter masochists can inspect the handbook in the main Computer Laboratory library and admire its collection of references to the primary literature and for its price (last seen as comfortably over £100).

"try
{
.....Bomb....
}
catch" - whether if someone threw a bomb at me I'd want to catch it or
run like nobody's business - well I suppose it would depend on how close
to the end of term it was.

"try
{
.....Bomb....
}
catch (Bomb b)
{.....
      b.defuse ();
      b.throw away();
}"

although my use of catch bomb and defuse and throw away are mildly
frivolous at this stage

"catch (Rabbit r)
{                  
      r.stew();
      r.eat();
}"

and very soon I'm going to have to show you how to throw rabbits

"open stable door();
try
{get on horse}
catch (Horse-escapes e)
{

}
finally
{close-stable-door();}"

- I understand there are things you can do to a horse if it is
troublesome

(referring to something he'd read)
'...a whole list of horse ailments and their remedy - in no case did this
lead to the horse actually surviving'

"int f(int x)
{
        return 42 - regardless of what computation you have done in there
}"