First class developer: who ?
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From: sl on 11 Mar 2010 22:10 Someone says if one does not know the difference between "equality" and "equivalence", then one is an entry-level developer at best. What is your opnion ? (I think we should not talk about mathematical concepts, since it is the software developer in question.) Thanks.
From: Roedy Green on 11 Mar 2010 22:21 On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:10:57 +0800, "sl(a)my-rialto" <ecp_gen(a)my-rialto.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said : >Someone says if one does not know the difference between "equality" and >"equivalence", then one is an entry-level developer at best. I think you will find these both defined in many different ways. It is expecting mindreading if they use yours. -- Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time. ~ Tom Cargill
From: Arne Vajhøj on 11 Mar 2010 22:30 On 11-03-2010 22:10, sl(a)my-rialto wrote: > Someone says if one does not know the difference between "equality" and > "equivalence", then one is an entry-level developer at best. > > What is your opnion ? (I think we should not talk about mathematical > concepts, since it is the software developer in question.) First class developers would ask you what you mean by those terms (or walkout from the interview, because they don't see any point in answering such questions). Entry level developers may think that the question makes sense. Arne
From: Joshua Cranmer on 11 Mar 2010 22:43 On 03/11/2010 10:10 PM, sl(a)my-rialto wrote: > Someone says if one does not know the difference between "equality" and > "equivalence", then one is an entry-level developer at best. > > What is your opnion ? (I think we should not talk about mathematical > concepts, since it is the software developer in question.) A highly cultured person would recognize that even common words may carry subtly different connotations to different groups of people. As such, it is therefore important to note that requiring people to attach the same two distinct definitions, as dictated by some arbitrary authority, to words that are typically synonyms in vernacular speech does not aid multicultural relations. I'm guessing that the intent is to distinguish between = and ≡. I'm also trying to think of an instance in computer science where I've actually cared about the difference between those two... relations. -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth
From: Patricia Shanahan on 11 Mar 2010 23:09
sl(a)my-rialto wrote: > Someone says if one does not know the difference between "equality" and > "equivalence", then one is an entry-level developer at best. > > What is your opnion ? (I think we should not talk about mathematical > concepts, since it is the software developer in question.) I think the question needs some context to make sense. Both terms are very heavily overloaded in computer science. For example, consider the following: "The equals method implements an equivalence relation on non-null object references:" http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html#equals(java.lang.Object) Maybe this is a rather vague way of getting at the following issue: I would indeed expect a competent Java developer to understand the difference, in Java, between a.equals(b) and a==b for reference expressions a and b. Patricia |