Re: [tlug] Fortran --> Python (was linux engineer)

[Attila Kinali <attila@example.com>]

On Thu, 07 Jun 2012 18:21:47 +0900
Darren Cook <darren@example.com> wrote:

> > Hence, i would expect anyone who is working in field F and uses tool T
> > should try to understand how T works, even though it originates in
> > a completely unrelated field U. But reality seems to be quite different...
> 
> If you achieve this you either have a job that does not require much
> knowledge, or unlimited resources (i.e. time in this case). If the
> latter I envy you :-)

Well.. i try to learn as much as i can about the stuff i use.
Often to the extend that other people tell me that i'm wasting
time with "fundamental research". Though a lot of what i look at
is outside of work in my free time, often completely unrelated
to what i'm actually doing (like trying to figure out how atomic
clocks work) which then somehow results in knowledge that helps
me to explain how the stuff i use at work does work.

> 
> (The former is the Zen Monk approach: cut practically everything out of
> your life, so you can give your full attention to the little that is
> left, such as breathing and walking.)

It might be Zen, but from my perspective it's kind of nihilistic.
It feels like destroying everything until nothing is left, just because
the world is too complicated. I instead try to figure out what the 
underlying structure in the world is to form a simplified model.

Do you still envy me? ;-)

			Attila Kinali

-- 
It is upon moral qualities that a society is ultimately founded. All 
the prosperity and technological sophistication in the world is of no 
use without that foundation.
                 -- Miss Matheson, The Diamond Age, Neil Stephenson