How do I dynamically create functions without lambda?

[Alex Martelli]

Re: How do I dynamically create functions without lambda?

Alan Morgan <amorgan@xenon. Stanford.EDU> wrote:
...[color=blue]
> Excessive cleverness can lead to unmaintainable code. So can excessive
> stupidity.[/color]

+1 QOTW.
[color=blue]
> Since there are a lot more stupid people than clever people out there I
> think the more likely scenario is having to maintain unmaintainable code
> written by a complete idiot whose programming knowledge comes solely from
> books whose titles end with "In 7 Days".[/color]

Disagree -- far more people THINK they're clever, than really ARE
clever. According to a recent article in the Financial Times, over 40%
of a typical financial firm's employees firmly believe they are among
the 5% best employees of the firm -- and the situation, believe me, is
no different in programming.


Alex

[Steve Holden]

Re: How do I dynamically create functions without lambda?

Alex Martelli wrote:[color=blue]
> Alan Morgan <amorgan@xenon. Stanford.EDU> wrote:
> ...
>[color=green]
>>Excessive cleverness can lead to unmaintainable code. So can excessive
>>stupidity.[/color]
>
>
> +1 QOTW.
>[/color]
++
[color=blue]
>[color=green]
>>Since there are a lot more stupid people than clever people out there I
>>think the more likely scenario is having to maintain unmaintainable code
>>written by a complete idiot whose programming knowledge comes solely from
>>books whose titles end with "In 7 Days".[/color]
>
>
> Disagree -- far more people THINK they're clever, than really ARE
> clever. According to a recent article in the Financial Times, over 40%
> of a typical financial firm's employees firmly believe they are among
> the 5% best employees of the firm -- and the situation, believe me, is
> no different in programming.
>
>[/color]

Just as 85% of drivers believe their skill level is "above average".

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

[Alan Morgan]

Re: How do I dynamically create functions without lambda?

In article <1ha3g79.1gcm6x 1yziggyN%aleaxi t@yahoo.com>,
Alex Martelli <aleaxit@yahoo. com> wrote:[color=blue]
>Alan Morgan <amorgan@xenon. Stanford.EDU> wrote:
> ...[color=green]
>> Excessive cleverness can lead to unmaintainable code. So can excessive
>> stupidity.[/color]
>
>+1 QOTW.[/color]

import blush
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Since there are a lot more stupid people than clever people out there I
>> think the more likely scenario is having to maintain unmaintainable code
>> written by a complete idiot whose programming knowledge comes solely from
>> books whose titles end with "In 7 Days".[/color]
>
>Disagree -- far more people THINK they're clever, than really ARE
>clever.[/color]

No doubt about it, but I don't see how it contradicts my statement.
[color=blue]
>According to a recent article in the Financial Times, over 40%
>of a typical financial firm's employees firmly believe they are among
>the 5% best employees of the firm -- and the situation, believe me, is
>no different in programming.[/color]

I wonder if python, which has a low barrier to entry due to its simple syntax
and general readability, might not have a worse time of this than other languages.

Alan
--
Defendit numerus

[Benji York]

Re: How do I dynamically create functions without lambda?

Alex Martelli wrote:[color=blue]
> Disagree -- far more people THINK they're clever, than really ARE
> clever. According to a recent article in the Financial Times, over 40%
> of a typical financial firm's employees firmly believe they are among
> the 5% best employees of the firm -- and the situation, believe me, is
> no different in programming.[/color]

It's apparently no different anywhere:

http://www.phule.net/mirrors/unskilled-and-unaware.html

--
Benji York

[Alex Martelli]

Re: How do I dynamically create functions without lambda?

Benji York <benji@benjiyor k.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> Alex Martelli wrote:[color=green]
> > Disagree -- far more people THINK they're clever, than really ARE
> > clever. According to a recent article in the Financial Times, over 40%
> > of a typical financial firm's employees firmly believe they are among
> > the 5% best employees of the firm -- and the situation, believe me, is
> > no different in programming.[/color]
>
> It's apparently no different anywhere:
> http://www.phule.net/mirrors/unskilled-and-unaware.html[/color]

Tx. Maybe it's a genetically adaptive trait: the FT points out that
while there is little correlation between an employee's opinion of their
skills, and the employee's actual performance, there IS positive
correlation between said opinion and the employee's career advancement.
One way to explain the correlation is: if you truly (albeit perhaps
mistakenly) believe you're great, you project that and are more likely
to get promotions or raises, than is somebody else, perhaps objectively
better, who's torn by self-doubt and projects THAT.

My working hypothesis would be that this effect would be far stronger in
fields where it's hard to get hard quantitative measures of performance,
so the managers (or clients, etc) rely to a large extent on subjective
judgment which can be influenced by such "projections".. .


Alex

[Alex Martelli]

Re: How do I dynamically create functions without lambda?

Alan Morgan <amorgan@xenon. Stanford.EDU> wrote:
...[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
> >> Since there are a lot more stupid people than clever people out there I
> >> think the more likely scenario is having to maintain unmaintainable code
> >> written by a complete idiot whose programming knowledge comes solely from
> >> books whose titles end with "In 7 Days".[/color]
> >
> >Disagree -- far more people THINK they're clever, than really ARE
> >clever.[/color]
>
> No doubt about it, but I don't see how it contradicts my statement.[/color]

The problem comes with the ones who aren't clever, think they are, and
attempt cleverness.

[color=blue][color=green]
> >According to a recent article in the Financial Times, over 40%
> >of a typical financial firm's employees firmly believe they are among
> >the 5% best employees of the firm -- and the situation, believe me, is
> >no different in programming.[/color]
>
> I wonder if python, which has a low barrier to entry due to its simple
> syntax and general readability, might not have a worse time of this than
> other languages.[/color]

So far, no, according to all the people I often exchange chat on such
experiences with. E.g., I was a panelist at SDForum the other day, the
moderator was Alexandra Weber Morales (until recently head editor of SD
Magazine, she's a freelance now), and she confirmed that Python
programmers still have the highest median and average salaries
(VisualBasic ones, the lowest), a strong indicator that they ARE good.

[[ Surprisingly, from all anecdotal experiences I hear about, the new
"digital peons" after VB programmers appear to be J2EE coders (I use the
word deliberately: people who _architect_, or even just _design_, J2EE
apps, are on a different plane -- people who _code_ J2EE apps are the
ones laboring long hours for low salaries, it seems). And, from
somebody who desperately needs to hire a small number of stellar-quality
Java experts, I've heard strong anecdotal confirmation: candidates who
tout their "J2EE" are much more likely to be "mindless code drones" than
ones who just focus in their resume on "Java". I don't understand J2EE
well enough to even guess at an explanation of why that might be so. ]]

Paul Graham makes the same point: if you're an entrepreneur with a
startup just ramping up, you'll get much abler people if you're looking
for Lisp or (failing that) Python programmers, than if you look for Java
programmers (he fails to distinguish between "Java" and "J2EE").

Now Lisp (or Haskell, etc) I could easily see. But why should Python
tend to correlate with "high skill", when, as you point out, it's in
fact _simpler_?! My current working hypothesis: Python has never been
marketed and hyped the way Java and C# &c have; somebody who CHOOSES
Python shows some ability to think for themselves, rather than following
the herd, and such ability correlated with programming skill. Note that
this hypothesis is reasonably independent of whether Python is a great
language or not: it would apply equally well to any language that has
never been substantially hyped/marketed. But there are probably too few
programmers who identify as, say, "D programmers", "Eiffel programmers",
etc, to show up in SD's statistics, while Python's starting (gradually,
and mostly "by word of mouth") to register on their radar...


Alex

[Paul Rubin]

Re: How do I dynamically create functions without lambda?

aleaxit@yahoo.c om (Alex Martelli) writes:[color=blue]
> Now Lisp (or Haskell, etc) I could easily see. But why should Python
> tend to correlate with "high skill", when, as you point out, it's in
> fact _simpler_?! My current working hypothesis: Python has never been
> marketed and hyped the way Java and C# &c have; somebody who CHOOSES
> Python shows some ability to think for themselves, rather than following
> the herd, and such ability correlated with programming skill.[/color]

Python also has a type of beauty to it (despite warts here and there),
so someone who chooses it probably has better attunement to
well-designed software than someone who chooses an uglier but equally
obscure language. That attunement would correlate with skill.

[Terry Hancock]

Re: How do I dynamically create functions without lambda?

On Thu, 2 Feb 2006 20:05:14 -0800
aleaxit@yahoo.c om (Alex Martelli) wrote:[color=blue]
> Benji York <benji@benjiyor k.com> wrote:[color=green]
> > Alex Martelli wrote:[color=darkred]
> > > Disagree -- far more people THINK they're clever, than
> > > really ARE clever. According to a recent article in
> > > the Financial Times, over 40% of a typical financial
> > > firm's employees firmly believe they are among the 5%
> > > best employees of the firm -- and the situation,
> > > believe me, is no different in programming.[/color]
> >
> > It's apparently no different anywhere:
> > http://www.phule.net/mirrors/unskilled-and-unaware.html[/color][/color]

I have to say, I've read this paper, and it's pretty bad
science. I think they seriously over-interpreted their
data. There are a lot of different ways to interpret the
data they present, and it takes a fair amount of sophistry
for them to come up with it "supporting " their hypothesis.

Which doesn't *disprove* the idea, but I remain unconvinced
by their reasoning. No doubt the effect they describe is
not non-existant, but I question whether it has as much
impact as proposed.

Note also in the datasets that *overperformers * *underrated*
their performance.

Also, the research was done on *particularly* subjective
subject matter! Take the "humor" category for example.

I also think this is precisely the kind of experiment that
has to be made *very* objective to be at all useful. It's so
easy to sensationalize: it plays on your self-worth fears,
your cynicism, and your arrogance *at the same time*. It's
hard to imagine that anyone accepting the results is doing
so for scientific reasons.

Frankly this paper sounds like a bid for the "Journal of
Irreproducible Results" that somehow got accidentally
submitted to a serious journal (of course, I don't know
enough about psychology journals to know if that is really
a "serious journal", but I'm taking it at face value).

Of course, you *could* conclude that I'm just "unskilled and
unaware of it" for believing this -- but that's the beauty
of all self-reinforcing delusions, isn't it. ;-)

Cheers,
Terry


--
Terry Hancock (hancock@Anansi Spaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com

[Fredrik Lundh]

Re: How do I dynamically create functions without lambda?

Terry Hancock wrote:
[color=blue]
> Frankly this paper sounds like a bid for the "Journal of
> Irreproducible Results" that somehow got accidentally
> submitted to a serious journal[/color]

http://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2000

</F>

[Magnus Lycka]

Re: How do I dynamically create functions without lambda?

Terry Hancock wrote:[color=blue]
> Note also in the datasets that *overperformers * *underrated*
> their performance.[/color]

Well, if you're the best in the group and aren't perfectly exact
in your evaluation of your position relative to others, you can't
overrate yourself. It's quite natural that the self evaluation curve
would be flatter than the actual curve, since "noise" will drive
the curve towards the middle, and it's also natural that the bad
performers are also less good at evaluating their own work, but
the strange thing is that the lowest quartile has higher self-
evaluation than the second lowest. I can't say my general picture
of coworkers generally support *this*, but I supect we've all run
across people who were incompetent and unaware of it now and then...

[Terry Hancock]

Re: How do I dynamically create functions without lambda?

On Fri, 3 Feb 2006 09:39:39 +0100
"Fredrik Lundh" <fredrik@python ware.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> Terry Hancock wrote:[color=green]
> > Frankly this paper sounds like a bid for the "Journal of
> > Irreproducible Results" that somehow got accidentally
> > submitted to a serious journal[/color]
> http://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2000
> </F>[/color]

Wow. It's a relief to know I'm not the only one who regards
this paper as a joke. :-)

Cheers,
Terry

--
Terry Hancock (hancock@Anansi Spaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com