And, of course, Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton (the title of an excellent biography of the man).
Charlie noted: "Unfortunately this is a classic case of confirmation bias; we notice outliers because they're outliers."
Very true in the context of history, but not quite right in the present context. MHP was selecting historical examples to support the overall point of this blog entry, which is about fictional characters. Unless we're reading a superhero comic, most novels feature one or very few larger-than-life characters surrounded by the rest of the normal world. That's an authorial choice (a different kind of selection bias), but one that fills an important market niche.
There have been and can be more stories about the spearcarriers (e.g., "Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead"), but they seem not to be what most people want to read.
]]>And the point I was making about K&R was that they typeset it, including the last edition, in the '90s, with ANSI C. And I'm not sure there have been major edits since... but the price keeps going up.
]]>For that matter, I have a friend who created her own publishing house... to publish her work. The one of her trilogy I've gotten, the first, isn't bad... but a real editor would have been better, and she needs better marketing....
]]>Also, consider that, at least in the US, 67% of all new businesses fail in the first year.
Now apply the above to someone Going Out To Look For Adventure.
And, just for good measure, let me tell you about people I truly consider a hero, and for whom I'd be pleased to buy a drink. On 1 Jan 1982, a passenger jet tried to take off from National Airport in DC, and wound up crashing on the 14th St. Bridge, and into the ice-filled water of the Potomac. One passenger was stuck in the water, but help to hand passengers out until he died. (I have heard he was stuck on metal in his crotch.) There was also a self-described bureaucrat, walking into work, who dropped his coat, jumped into the Potomac, and helped bring one or more people to safety.
The latter was interviewed in the mid-90's: still a bureaucrat, no book contract.. he said he just did what needed to be done.
]]>(Summarized loosely from memory; some details may be mildly inaccurate.)
The thing is, K&R had form, not to mention an entire typesetting system they'd participated in the invention of, and secretarial and other assistance. Meanwhile, I'd just like to add that proofreading a technical reference like "The C Programming Language" is utterly different from a novel (clue: the former contains large chunks that can be programmatically verified — throw the listings at a compiler and see if they work — and is also less than a quarter the word count).
]]>I don't want to be unnecessarily rude, but have spent quite a lot of my time in this sort of area, and "The C Programming Language" is NOT something to hold up as an example of how things should be done. Quite the converse, in fact, especially the second edition, which was a political document. You are absolutely correct that proofreading technical references is very different, but your example is more-or-less irrelevant - a lot of broken code will compile, and even seem to work.
]]>Indeed. The hard part about programming is creating code that actually does what it's intended to do rather than something unexpected. For example: http://www.zdnet.com/article/excel-errors-microsofts-spreadsheet-may-be-hazardous-to-your-health/
To be clear, I understand that Charlie is NOT claiming that successful compilation means the same thing as code validation. It only demonstrates that the code's syntax (and a few other details) is correct. Using the "will it compile" test is much like using any of the commonly available readability formulas to parse text and determine whether it's readable. It don't work worth a damn, folks. Any readability formula that can't distinguish between a clear and effective sentence and the exact same sentence with the words randomized is worthless and probably dangerously misleading.
]]>I'm curious - how is it a "political document"? I mean, it got that cute "ANSI C" stamp on the front cover, but I never noticed any politics...
Now, Les Hatton's "Safer C" - there's fun... (I enjoy his articles, even if they make for uncomfortable reading)
http://www.leshatton.org/Documents/SoftwareEngineering_HattonFeb2016.pdf
]]>Note to mods - plese delete this message as well, once done?
]]>The spam came in in the small hours (UK time) while I was in bed, late enough that our US west coast mod(s) were probably also AFK, and I note that with worldcon coming up next week more than two of the moderators are traveling internationally (either right now, or in the next few days).
I'm going to be flying out to Helsinki tomorrow at zero-dark o'clock, and won't be back until the following Wednesday, for example, so blogging may be scanty in the meantime (and spam removed a bit late).
]]>The authors, I think we were told, had initially expected to sell about 5000, and the first few years were reasonably slow.
]]>