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From: ech@spuxll.UUCP (Ned Horvath)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: The Joys of Batch
Message-ID: <494@spuxll.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Jun-84 22:12:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: spuxll.494
Posted: Mon Jun 11 22:12:54 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 12-Jun-84 07:00:38 EDT
References: <3572@fortune.UUCP>
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Salvation through suffering is not a point of view totally without merit,
but suffering without cause doesn't save anything.  No amount of planning
will prevent a two-hour wait from revealing a typo -- and only a typo.
At the other extreme, I have often witnessed students playing "shotgun
programming" with the 20-minute batch turnaround:  make a dozen random changes,
then apply the shotgun to the one that comes closest...

Should you also be barred from using word processors until you get
out of college because a typewriter will build your typing skills?  Or
better yet, longhand will improve your penmanship?

The lesson is a good one -- "you have failed before you begin because
you do not plan."  But that lesson, I submit, is only learned the hard way,
and is orthogonal to an equally important lesson:

If you fail to buy the best tools that you can afford, you are only
working hard - not smart.

=Ned=