Re: File's Owner
Re: File's Owner
- Subject: Re: File's Owner
- From: James Merkel <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 25 May 2008 13:14:17 -0700
On May 25, 2008, at 12:02 PM, Hamish Allan wrote:
What this thread has reminded me of is an ongoing conversation I have
with a friend of mine, who refuses to countenance the square root of
minus one, because he doesn't think it means anything. I explain to
him how useful it can be to admit complex numbers for various
real-world situations, but because there exists an algorithm to
generate mandelbrots which doesn't ever do sqrt(n) for n<0, he thinks
this proves that complex numbers are entirely unnecessary and
therefore best avoided.
It doesn't matter how much you explain that "real" numbers are
imaginary too, or that the square root of 4 apples is also meaningless
in a physical sense. He has a sort of emotional investment in the
uselessness of complex numbers that completely blinkers him. The
difference is, I doubt that this particular friend will ever have
reason to do anything that will be made easier by using complex
numbers, so I don't suppose his opinion will ever change. But I'm
hoping that it's just a matter of time for Johnny.
(Maybe when he has occasion to create a document-based app it will
become clearer? Although bags I not the one to tell him that
NSDocumentController is not designed to mediate between his view and
his NSDocument ;] )
The way I look at it, when you are attempting to learn a new subject
you need to be humble. By that I mean you need to jettison some
preconceived ideas and probably accept some things without a complete
understanding (at least initially). If you are not willing to do
that, you will have a hard time assimilating new ideas.
Case in point, when I first started taking courses in electrical
engineering, I remember some people saying that if you had previous
experience with electronics/radio (like for example, you were a Ham
radio operator), you might have more difficulty learning some concepts
because you had preconceived ideas that were incorrect. (By the way,
electrical engineering is where you will use complex numbers.)
More to the subject at hand, I thought File's owner was just a
mechanism for connecting nib objects to code. Nothing more or less. If
I'm missing something, someone can correct me.
Jim
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