AM (myname4rwt@jee.male) on 10/10/09 wrote:
---------------------------

>Read:
>>Do I have exact sales figures? No, and I never claimed to, nor did I invent any.
>
>It's just amazing how quickly one can go from claiming which Atom bin sold most chips to denying it.

I have re-read that thread and as far as I can see, Ungo never claimed to have exact sales figures. Why do you think he did?

> You constantly fail to see the big
> picture and do relatively simple
> reasoning on your own. Think:
> compared to good sources written
> by the best minds, what a lecture
> by a local professor can possibly
> add to that?

I think I have already explained this quite well. It helps student get a grip and do some studying during longer period of time. It is also less than clear to me that there are some good sources easily available, but we can just agree to disagree about that. I don't think it's more than a minor point.

> Does he have a better and deeper
> understanding of the subject
> than people who did original
> research or designed a real
> product? Is he in position to
> answer questions to which the
> sources contain no answers?

A professor is supposed to do research himself. I'm not saying this is very relevant on basic courses, but it should at least motivate students more than just giving them a book to read. Whether that research is world class or not certainly factors in on more advanced courses.

> Don't get me wrong: there *are*
> people who dedicated themselves
> to education, and yet their
> expertise is hardly questioned
> by anyone (e.g. Don Knuth comes
> to mind), but such people are
> few and far between.

In engineering you are probably right. Large part (perhaps even most part) of research is done by or with private companies and independent research by a university is rare.

>> When it comes to expertise, the
>> professors are supposed to be
>> among the greatest experts in
>> the world, on their own field
>> of study. Not all (or most)
>> are, of course, but that's the
>> idea anyway. So they should be
>> able to bring something special
>> to the table.
>
> "Supposed", yes. *That's* the problem.

I think that for most fields, it isn't. And as far as basic courses go, good teaching skills are probably more important than top of the world expertise on subject matter.

> Besides, since you switched from
> discussing the topic to education,
> I would like to focus your
> attention on the following (from
> my last post before teaching):

Why are you doing this? You already "won", I "gave up".

> Actually, many things you write
> make me seriously wonder what
> your real purpose is. You say
> how easy it's to misunderstand,
> yet you write in a
> very-easy-to-misinterpret
> style;

I'm writing in foreign language about very abstract things. If we can change language to Finnish, I promise to do a lot better job. That may not be the only problem, but certainly a big one.

> you accuse me of "adding" something
> to your statements, yet when I bold
> out what you said (below), you are
> full of surprize etc. It just
> doesn't look like you're trying to
> resolve a misunderstanding or
> arrive at a meaningful answer to a
> question that bothers you.

You quoted me out of context. You took part of my text talking about the example I had set up and presented it as something I generally think is true. I was all surprised because I cannot fathom how you still at that point managed to miss the context of the example.

So I gave up. It doesn't matter whether I'm doing über bad job at writing or you reading. Were obviously not getting anywhere.

> If you honestly believe that your
> "big 3" is a meaningful mental
> exercise re. OoOE or a design
> feature in general, may I ask to
> what conclusions does it lead you?

There's no free lunch and everything affects everything. Although my point was actually to opposite direction.

> ... Please, do some explanation
> here in case I fail to see the
> great academic significance of
> this exercise.

I don't know whether you intent to insult here or what, but I don't like you twisting and exaggerating what I wrote. I'm quite sure I never said there was _great_ academic significance.

I might have accidentally implied academic significance, although that depends on what exactly academic means (for example, is something that may have significance on a basic university course considered academic just because it happens in university setting?). I'm pretty sure you can find a quotation to prove that.

> Well, I thought you were a fanboy of
> theory, so how about we come to some
> conclusion how his speaking from
> theoretical standpoint (acc. to you)
> is connected with real theory?

Hmm? I think Jouni (and others) made good points, even if there wasn't practical examples to demonstrate them.

By the way. I think you got that fanboy of theory thing I said wrong. It seems that most of the time you use the title I don't quite understand what you want.

> Well, you said that I tend to constantly
> interpret things as I want. You surely
> meant that my interpretation was wrong,
> correct? Hence the request to be
> fact-based.

It's not black and white. Interpreting your way is only wrong from the point of view that you may interpret differently than what the writer _thought_. If you just take the text and forget the thought behind it, there aren't wrong interpretations anymore, just different ones.

-JLarja