Bertrand Meyer's technology+ blog
Software engineering, programming methodology, languages, verification, general technology, publication culture, and more
(A version of this note was published as three separate articles in the Communications of the ACM blog.) Work in engineering, science or technology can only be effective if it relies on precisely defined concepts. For the fundamental notions taught at school, particularly in mathematics, physics, and chemistry, the definitions, honed over centuries, have become … Read more
We are all familiar with the classical mode of teaching. The instructor and other attendees, each sitting alone in a geographical location as far away as possible from all the others, look at shared PowerPoint slide and a grid of black rectangles with names. The names refer to students, although they are usually not their … Read more
Here is an extract from of an exchange between ChatGPT and me. Previous elements: I am writing a text on a topic that I know well but not to the point of considering myself an expert. Along the way, I am asking ChatGPT for information, or confirmation of information that I think I know. Indeed, … Read more
The CF-Index, or Conference Frustration index, is an integer n (n ≥ 1) defined as follows. You are at a conference where your paper submission was rejected, and sitting in the session devoted to that paper’s very topic. You think for yourself “My paper was at least n times better than the average here”. That … Read more
A 1949 book I just bought* has the following printer’s label, hand-glued on the title page: Because of a change in pagination, you will need to add the digit 9 [actually, the number, not the digit] to references to page numbers between 1 and 114, and the digit 8 to those between 116 and the … Read more
What can you do to or with an algorithm? In other words, what is a good verb to substitute for the hyphen in “— the algorithm”? You can learn an algorithm. Discovering classical algorithms is a large part of the Bildungsroman of a computer scientist. Sorting algorithms, graph algorithms, parsing algorithms, numerical algorithms, matrix algorithms, graphical … Read more
No one seems until now [1] to have identified a key element of any scientific article being submitted or revised for publication. It is guaranteed to increase, if not the quality of your articles, at least their chances of publication, which after all is what counts. We are told to include a “related work” section, … Read more
The Schaffhausen Institute of Technology (SIT) is holding a Webinar tomorrow with a set of three talks by: Serguei Beloussov, founder of Acronis and president of SIT; Michael Widenius, CTO of MariaDB and creator of MySQL Server; and Mauro Pezzè, my colleague at SIT, who will present the new master program that we have just … Read more
In the current state of the pandemic and for many more months until a vaccine is found, there is exactly one way to fight the coronavirus, protecting yourself and protecting others. It is not a mask. It is two masks. You wear a mask, I wear a mask. Many people still believe that they can … Read more
The decent media is not modest these days. “Democracy Dies in Darkness” says the excellent Washington Post, intimating, if I understand it right, that the only way for the US to avoid dictatorship is that I pay subscription fees. Maybe I would if they just stopped devoting every single one of their articles to King … Read more