[SPG_Active_Members] Ensmenger's "The Computer Boys Take Over" MIT Press 2010

[Gio Wiederhold]

Richard,
   Thanks for the source of the quote. I only heard it orally from Don.
I must admit, when on NSF etc review boards, I wonder about proposers who
describe themselves as `Principle Investigators'.
It happens more often than you'd like to imagine.  I never rejected a
proposal outright because of that error.
Being a poor typist, it takes me much time to get everything correct.
Gio


On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 10:35 PM, Richard P. Gabriel <rpg at dreamsongs.com>wrote:

> At 18:37 -0700 9/2/10, Gio & Voy Wiederhold wrote:
>
>> Don Knuth once told me (paraphrased): only people that don't write books
>> write books without errors.
>>
>
> The passage in question is from a 100-word paragraph on the author's web
> front page dated May 11 in the form of a blurb for the book in question. In
> Knuth's universe of writers, this is much closer to someone who doesn't
> write books, and so the errors should be similarly small.  A thousand errors
> of this variety in one of Knuth's books would be a little shocking, I think.
>
> In such a short and prominent piece of writing, one should be careful and
> it is possible to proofread in that case.
>
> Prof Ensmenger was quite gracious in his reply to my pointing out the typo,
> and he has corrected it. He made some interesting other remarks, so I would
> second the idea he would be a good speaker.
>
> I'd be interested to hear from those of you who believe it's preferable to
> have a mistake like this in a blurb for a book.
>
>                        -rpg-
>



-- 
Gio Wiederhold
infolab.stanford.edu/people/gio.html
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