[Info-vax] Python for x86?

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 4/17/2023 10:47 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 4/17/2023 7:25 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 4/17/2023 3:00 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> Simon Clubley  <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>>> On 2023-04-14, bill <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 4/14/2023 1:46 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>>> My point is that Python has a major thing going for it in that it is
>>>>>> relatively easy to learn and use by people who are not professional
>>>>>> programmers or professional sysadmins.
>>>>>
>>>>> And if all there was to programming was syntax that might be a good
>>>>> thing.  But it isn't and having all these totally unqualified asses
>>>>> writing "programs" is certainly not a good thing.
>>>>
>>>> That is a totally out of touch and _extremely_ elitist thing to say 
>>>> Bill.
>>>>
>>>> We are talking about applications and areas that have skilled domain
>>>> knowledge experts, but who are not computer programmers. What you
>>>> appear to be saying is that these people are not allowed to use their
>>>> expertise until they become C or C++ experts.
>>>
>>> I don't think it is elitist or out of touch at all.
>>>
>>> 25 years ago, those skilled domain knowledge experts would be sitting 
>>> down
>>> with a programmer and telling the programmer what they wanted, and the
>>> programmer would be saying things like "Would it be okay if we did it in
>>> THIS order because it would be faster?" and things like "If this 
>>> value is
>>> zero, it's not going to work, so will this ever be zero?"  There 
>>> would be
>>> a team with the programmer and the subject matter expert.
>>>
>>> Now more likely we have SMEs writing code and I hate to say it but 
>>> this is
>>> often a very very bad idea.  "It's okay, I can use Matlab for the 
>>> database
>>> engine!"  I wish I were joking about that but I am not.
>>
>> "shadow IT" is a real problem. Adhoc hacked code with no
>> development process that is impossible to maintain, contains security
>> vulnerabilities, performs poorly etc.etc..
>>
>> But it is not all types of programming that requires a formal
>> development process.
>>
>> Sure for the major application that are doing something important
>> and are expected to live for 10-20-30-40 years years, then it
>> should be a given.
>>
>> But there are other types of programming:
>> * the finance person that need to automate some stuff
>>   in Excel and do it in VBA
>> * the finance person that want to see how various
>>   interest scenarios impact the budget and do it
>>   in Python
>> * the sys admin that need to automate some processes
>>   and do it in shell/Python
>> * the sys admin that need to move a lot of stuff around
>>   as a one time thing and do it in shell/Python
>> * the data person that need to export a lot of data from
>>   some data sources and load them into a DWH and do it
>>   in Python
>> * the data science person that need to try out hundreds
>>   of different forecast models to find the best model and
>>   do it in Python/R/Matlab
>> etc.
>>
>> In those cases the formal development process does not
>> make any sense. It takes too long time and cost too much
>> money.
> 
> But what's the problem of running ideas past some decent analysts?  That 
> assumes said analysts will provide the time.

Just time and money.

:-)

Arne