from Diary 2023-10-14 The ends and means are interchangeable depending on one’s position.
1T0T It is interesting to see a lot of discussion flowing about why FORTRAN continues to be used, but my own skin feeling is that “the disadvantages of continuing to use it without replacing it with a new language are I think the most important reason is that “the disadvantages of continuing to use FORTRAN without replacing it with a new language are small”. I think that there are many things, not only programming languages, that remain the same because “the disadvantages of continuing to use an old one are small.
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1T0T↑This is a totally different story, but I remember hearing somewhere that the disadvantages of using cash are greater in less secure countries, and the disadvantages are smaller in more secure countries, which is why some countries, including Japan, have not gone cashless because they are more secure. I remember hearing somewhere that there are countries, including Japan, where the cashless system has not been promoted because of their high security.
yt_geodesy At least in geoscience, programming is a means, not an end.
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pmagshib I guess any science will do.
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yt_geodesy Sometimes people who specialize in computer science don’t. It can be a strange atmosphere, like a federation conference.
dmikurube Conversely, for those who specialize in computers themselves, the fields in which they are used are merely a means to an end. If everyone thinks that “selling to them is neither profitable, rewarding, nor cooperative,” optimization and acceleration for them will naturally fall out of consideration, so, well…
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dmikurube For example, if all computer shops give up/stop maintaining FORTRAN or its processing systems, what will they do then? I wonder what they will do after that. I don’t mind if we are each other’s means to an end, but I would like us to respect each other.
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dmikurube Computers are a means to an end from the perspective of other fields, but not the computationalist.
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dmikurube These things are usually not one-sided in terms of ends and means, but when you look at the whole picture, including the time axis, demand influences the direction of supply, and the cycle is an ecosystem. In the case of a company, I think the most recent profit is the priority. Well, I think it is natural for a company to give priority to immediate profit, but as a person in academia, I would like you to have a broader perspective.
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