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Posted by Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t on 03/24/07 07:54
> From: Richard Heathfield <r...@see.sig.invalid>
> > If you want to validate a textbook, you have a group of students
> > actually try learning from it, you don't have a bunch of experts
> > nitpick it to death.
> That depends on what you're validating. If you're checking that
> the book is comprehensible to students, then by all means use
> students in your test suite.
What I'm trying to check is whether it conveys information which
when put into practice turns out to be correct, i.e. the reader's
software using what my document suggests actually does what the
student hoped it'd do which my document said it should do.
> But if you're trying to ascertain whether the information you are
> giving out is *right*, then you had better break out your six-pak
> of independent experts after all.
I don't have a six-pak of experts available on my call. I don't
have billions of dollars to throw around hiring experts to test
what I write. (And even Bill Gates is ripped off by testers who
fail to find horrible vulnerabilities, allowing grossly faulty
software out into the field, where millions of instances of such
software connected to home-DSL lines is hijacked by a
spam-bot-net.)
Now if you're willing to hire a team of experts to proofread my
document, comparing everything it says with official documentation,
and also actually writing test programs to verify everything I
describe actually works in all the usual implementations of C, feel
free to offer your great wealth in that way. Otherwise, where the
fuck do you expect me to acquire a six-pak of experts with
absolutely no money to pay them???
> Students, by definition, do not have enough information to judge
> whether a book is correct or not.
If the book is merely stating facts about nature, you are correct.
But if the book is saying how to achieve various data-processing
tasks via various corresponding source code, any student with
access to a decent C compiler has entirely enough resources to test
anything they read in my CookBook/Matrix document. In addition a
student using my CookBook/Matrix as a resource to tell them how to
program various tasks is a lot more motivated to actually try what
they read, because after all they had a desire to learn how to
program a task, and then to actually program it, before they went
to my CookBook/Matrix to read how to do it.
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