[Haskell-cafe] To [] Or Not To []

[Doug McIlroy]

This stirred ancient memories in praise of wrong programs:

> > * If your program sorts a list, then your program is wrong.
>
> This seems a very strange claim.
>
> The whole thing is an abuse of the word "wrong".
> A program can be all of ugly, inefficient, unidiomatic,
> &c &c without being WRONG.

Fifty-plus years ago, when computing was 1000 times slower
and cost $600/hour, it was typical for professional programmers
to mediate between scientists and computers so that
those expensive machines would be used efficiently. At Bell
Labs, though, Dick Hamming insisted on open-shop computing
because "It is more important to have the right problem
done the wrong way, than to have the wrong problem done
the right way."

Doug