OSDev.org

Ah well, we all make mistakes.

But I think that nicely illustrates my point; don't rely on others to do the donkey work for you (and possibly give you misinformation) when it is so easy to do a little experimentation.

iansjack wrote:

I'm sure asking a simple question on here and getting a decent answer from someone like Brendan would be quicker than finding my linux hard drive, rebooting and testing.

Or even taking the trouble to install the Windows version of NASM. I agree; it's much easier to just let someone else do the work for you. But is it a good grounding for OS development? - I don't think so.

In exactly the same way, as I said, it's easier to ask someone else to debug your code for you than to do the work yourself.

Yes, I guess I was just being lazy.

Although this simple question has led to some rather interesting discussions - isn't that one of the main purposes of a forum?

iansjack wrote:But I think that nicely illustrates my point; don't rely on others to do the donkey work for you (and possibly give you misinformation) when it is so easy to do a little experimentation.

Good point - thanks for the advice.

BMW wrote:Although this simple question has led to some rather interesting discussions - isn't that one of the main purposes of a forum?

I'm not interested in bashing you or anything but I thought this particular phrase deserved an answer.

Just because sometimes seemingly bad situations turn out to work for the best and seemingly good situations take a turn for the worse, that doesn't mean you should break into people's houses on the off chance that they have kidnapped someone and are holding them prisoner, even if that's not an impossibility. Instead, you should act in a way that is statistically likely to yield positive results.

Love4Boobies wrote:

BMW wrote:Although this simple question has led to some rather interesting discussions - isn't that one of the main purposes of a forum?

I'm not interested in bashing you or anything but I thought this particular phrase deserved an answer.

Just because sometimes seemingly bad situations turn out to work for the best and seemingly good situations take a turn for the worse, that doesn't mean you should break into people's houses on the off chance that they have kidnapped someone and are holding them prisoner, even if that's not an impossibility. Instead, you should act in a way that is statistically likely to yield positive results.

But he didn't break into a house, he asked a question. You managed to form an analogy which went from the, to us, well known domain of forum behaviour to the, hopefully to us, more unusual and less well understood domain of house breaking and hostage taking. I think you're supposed to go the other way.

I think this thread is fantastic. In fact, I think this thread should be made sticky. It is a great example of why we should choose knowledge over belief. We would all become better designers and implementers if we heeded the lesson of this thread. If the OP modifies his behaviour after this experience he'll end up in a better position than most who post to this board.

The point of the metaphor was not to create a more familiar situation, as both are easy to comprehend, but to change the scale such that it becomes more obvious that just because you won a game (in the sense of game theory) doesn't mean you played it well. You can sometimes win by getting lucky.

Love4Boobies wrote:The point of the metaphor was not to create a more familiar situation, as both are easy to comprehend, but to change the scale such that it becomes more obvious that just because you won a game (in the sense of game theory) doesn't mean you played it well. You can sometimes win by getting lucky.

Eh? Game? A silly but topical question was asked on a discussion forum. Where's the game?
Discussing hostage taking isn't making things obvious.

bwat wrote:Eh? Game? A silly but topical question was asked on a discussion forum. Where's the game?

It's not the kind of game you're thinking of. Game theory is a mathematical framework for decision making. In this case, his decision was whether to be lazy or not.

bwat wrote:Discussing hostage taking isn't making things obvious.

Clearly not for you, as you often seem to need as much explaining as children do. Thankfully, I wasn't talking to you. I'm quite certain that, unlike you, he got the point. But, if he didn't, he's the one who should say something.

Anyway, I won't be answering any more of your replies in this thread.

Love4Boobies wrote:

bwat wrote:Eh? Game? A silly but topical question was asked on a discussion forum. Where's the game?

It's not the kind of game you're thinking of. Game theory is a mathematical framework for decision making. In this case, his decision was whether to be lazy or not.

The prisoner's delima is a serious stretch and seriously irrelevant as per everything said in this thread.

bwat wrote:I think this thread is fantastic. In fact, I think this thread should be made sticky. It is a great example of why we should choose knowledge over belief. We would all become better designers and implementers if we heeded the lesson of this thread. If the OP modifies his behaviour after this experience he'll end up in a better position than most who post to this board.

I agree, it is a good lesson. I will do my best to modify my behaviour in accord with the lesson.

Love4Boobies wrote:It's not the kind of game you're thinking of.

In your previous post you informed us you meant "game" as in "game theory" and not "game" as in "tiddliwinks", so, I knew what you meant.

Love4Boobies wrote:Game theory is a mathematical framework for decision making. In this case, his decision was whether to be lazy or not.

What I'm trying to say is that the OP asked a question and got his/her answers and, this is the good part, we all got priceless experience. Now, how are you modelling that with your decision theory? What I'm saying is that your game/decision theory approach isn't representationally adequate (*). It can't deal with such an outcome. There's no game here.

Love4Boobies wrote:Clearly not for you, as you often seem to need as much explaining as children do.

There is an inverse relation between intension and extension. God is in the details. Give me all the explanation you can.

Love4Boobies wrote:Thankfully, I wasn't talking to you. I'm quite certain that, unlike you, he got the point. But, if he didn't, he's the one who should say something.

If you were only talking to the OP you would have sent a PM.

Love4Boobies wrote:Anyway, I won't be answering any more of your replies in this thread.

!


*) Not the right term I feel, but, it's the best I can come up with right now.

EDIT: It looks like this term I'm looking for could be "ludic fallacy".

we all got priceless experience

I fear that everyone is going over the top and reading far too much into this thread.

I certainly didn't get "priceless" experience from it; perhaps I am just more sparing with my hyperboles.

iansjack wrote:

we all got priceless experience

I fear that everyone is going over the top and reading far too much into this thread.

I certainly didn't get "priceless" experience from it; perhaps I am just more sparing with my hyperboles.

I once saw a wrong throughput figure taken on faith turn out to be wrong after millions of Euros being spent on H/W and S/W development assuming it was right (*). It was uncovered after a very simple calculation and performance test with a benchmark program, only after performance of the final system was found to be not up to spec. That could all have been avoided. Luckily no employees were laid off as this was a big enough company to put them on other projects, but contractors were let go. I cannot be alone in having experienced such a thing.


*) About 1 year of work for 5 to 10 S/W developers and 3 or 4 H/W developers, a couple of rounds of prototype board manufacturing.

What you say is, of course, true and could I guess be described as "priceless" knowledge. But I didn't learn that from this thread, and I suspect that the same is true for many of us.

iansjack wrote:What you say is, of course, true and could I guess be described as "priceless" knowledge. But I didn't learn that from this thread, and I suspect that the same is true for many of us.

Nor should you, as that was just an instantiation. The benefit of critical thought was the lesson. Or have I misunderstood you?

The benefit of critical thought was the lesson. Or have I misunderstood you?

That was indeed the lesson. But it wasn't one that I learnt from this thread - I learnt it through many years experience.

I'd venture as far as to say that I was the one who first pointed out, here, the value of experimentation rather than accepting someone else's word uncritically. Admittedly my remark wasn't well received until empiricism showed it to be correct!