Re: Brian Kernighan, maybe I'm not worthy, maybe I'm scum

On Jan 1, 2:19 am, amor...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Alan Morgan) wrote:
In article <4958c178-49ec-403d-a8ae-64fd06d64...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,

spinoza1111 <spinoza1...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I have an idea for reducing the cyberbullying at this ng which I've
also used at humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare.

It is "The Spinoza Challenge".

I will take a test on a programming topic without special preparation
and closed book, and report my score, along with information as to my
overall familiarity with the tested platform, language or topic.

My first Spinoza Challenge: beat my score: I just took the C++ test
that is available on Spark Notes athttp://www.sparknotes.com/cs/c++fundamentals/review/quiz.html
and received 76%.

90%.  This was a horrible test.  Some of the questions were ambiguous

Congratulatons on the highest score so far.

or just plain invalid and I believe that two of my "incorrect" answers
are, in fact, better than the "correct" ones (and some of my "correct"
answers are equally bad).

The authors of this test should be ashamed of themselves.  Anyone who
can't find 15 errors or ambiguities in this test doesn't deserve to
call themselves a C++ programmer.

I'd call this sour grapes...but you did well.

It's not the greatest test in the world, but life sucks. I think we
can all find "errors and ambiguities" in a test that challenges our
sense of self-worth for the SAME reason that newbies in this ng are
attacked, and the worst possible interpretation is placed on their
claims: newbies, and people who are outlier in any way, say by
combining technology and sociology, implicitly question the way we've
made sense of our world.

I am just going to take the frigging tests. I also use the Spark Notes
Shakespeare quizzes in teaching Shakespeare to make certain that I and
the students have a clear idea of who is what in a complicated play.

I won't be challenging a single question, just seeking the best
answer. Period.



Alan
--
Defendit numerus

.