I work with programmers from India.  They are coding for Unix, and 
don't know the difference between a cron job and a daemon (no kidding).  
Nor do they understand the importance of the java classpath as they
will cheerfully modify a jar file to their liking and put in where it
will prevent other programs from running.

With that in mind, "programming is an eminently TRAINABLE skill" is not
true.  It is like automotive mechanics.  One must have the inclination.
These are the adepts.  

I do agree with you on one point: our economy's system for creating 
coders is completely wrong.  The colleges are teaching not to optimize
code.  Guess who Microsoft targets for their recruiting campaigns?
College graduates, who don't know how to optimize.  Linux rocks because
Unix programmers know how to optimize code.

George



Shadow wrote:
> 
> Trent Shipley wrote:
> >
> > Of course computer science is not about programming.  A CS student is
> > supposed to work at developing completely new algorithms, applications,
> > technology or above all CS theory.
> >    Most programming deals with variations on themes.   You redeploy the same
> > tools to solve related problems.  The main level of creativity is just at
> > the level of problem analysis.
> >
> > I've been thinking about it and am starting to suspect that programming is a
> > trade . . . along with construction, repair, networking, help-desk, etc.
> > Briefly:
> >
> > Computer Science :: Mathematics :: Physics                   Discipline
> >
> > CIS/MIS::Computer Engineering::Medicine::EE                  Profession
> >
> > Hacking/Programming::Networking::Plumbing::Journalism        Trade
> >
> > This also implies that programming is an eminently TRAINABLE skill and that
> > our economy's system for creating coders is completely wrong....   (Which is
> > a good thing if you are highly paid programmer or his dependent, and bad if
> > you are anybody else.)
> 
> I have to agree.  As an example, take a look at India.  They are
> training a non technical society to code for foreign corporations.
> Coding and debugging existing algorithms requires trainable skills like
> translating written languages.  However, don't expect great amounts of
> innovation from trade coders unless you have worked out the underlying
> principals in advance.
> 
> Just my two bits (0,1).
> 
> --
> Chris Lewis
> Tesla Systems
> shadow@digitalnirvana.com
> ----------------------------------------
> You want what?? When??  And how cold is it in Hell today?
> ----------------------------------------
> 
> The following code is a PERL script capable of decoding a CSS (Content
> Scrambling System) encrypted DVD in real time.  This is illegal to
> possess in the US according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a
> set of laws passed by anonymous vote in congress in 1998.  The Motion
> Picture Association of America (MPAA) is opposed to the distribution of
> this software because it allows the owners of CSS encrypted DVDs to
> exercise their long-standing fair use rights with new digital
> technologies.  For more information, please visit:
> http://www.opendvd.org/
> 
> #!/usr/bin/perl -w
> # 526-byte qrpff, Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz
> <sipb-iap-dvd@mit.edu>
> # MPEG 2 PS VOB file on stdin -> descrambled output on stdout
> # arguments: title key bytes in least to most-significant order
> $_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$c=142;if((@a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h=5;
> $_=unxb24,join"",@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])}@ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$d=
> unxV,xb25,$_;$b=73;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[3];$d=$d>>8^($f=($t=255)&($d
> >>12^$d>>4^$d^$d/8))<<17,$e=$e>>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e)^$q*8^$q<<6))<<9
> ,$_=(map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=($m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;$t
> ^=(72,@z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)[$_%8]}(16..271))
> [$_]^(($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128..$#a]}print+x"C*",@a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval
> 
> ________________________________________________
> See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doesn't post to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail.
> 
> Plug-discuss mailing list  -  Plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss