Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!amdahl!nsc!taux01!taux02!amos
From: amos@taux02.UUCP (Amos Shapir)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Professional Programmers (was: Seeing the future)
Message-ID: <321@taux02.UUCP>
Date: 28 Nov 88 06:39:39 GMT
References: <1984@eos.UUCP> <28200245@mcdurb>
Organization: National Semiconductor (IC) Ltd, Israel Home of the 32532
Lines: 16
Hdate: 19 Kislev 5749

In article <28200245@mcdurb> aglew@mcdurb.Urbana.Gould.COM writes:
>I am excited because a friend was parallelizing the previously
>best known algorithm (...) and he was obtaining impressive
>speedups (it's amazing what a difference a professional programmer
>can make).

Having seen some programs written by scientists, I am not at all amazed.
Most of what a professional programmer does when helping scientists,
is to change things like  cos(atan(x))**2  to  1/(1+x*x) .

The hardest part is convincing the scientists that it does make a difference.
-- 
	Amos Shapir				amos@nsc.com
National Semiconductor (Israel) P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel
Tel. +972 52 522261  TWX: 33691, fax: +972-52-558322
34 48 E / 32 10 N			(My other cpu is a NS32532)