Aardvark and Bandicoot, Chapter 2
Mon 2 May 2016 by mskala Tags used: programming, math, philosophy, aardvark, bandicootIn which Some Points are Clarified, but One is Left Unanswered
[first chapter] | [all in this series]
Bandicoot: Friend Aardvark, Friend Aardvark!
Aardvark: Oh, good morning, Friend Bandicoot. I see you're wearing your programming pants again today.
B: Trousers.
A: What?
B: I wear pants under my trousers. But I don't have any special software engineering pants.
A: No software engineering pants.
B: That's right.
A: Okay.
B: It's only my trousers that are for software engineering.
A: All right. Is that what you were so eager to tell me?
B: No, I wanted to clarify some points regarding this expression parser we're working on. Say, shouldn't you put on your management sweater?
A: Well, it's a bit of a warm day to wear a sweater, but all right. Here it goes.
B: Very stylish!
A: Thank you. Now, what were your questions?
B: Point one. "Which GPU families should we support?"
A: I'm, uh, not sure we really need to support any GPU families. This module doesn't have anything to do with graphics, you know.
B: But our customers all have computers, right?
A: Sure.
B: And the computers have video cards, right?
A: Often built into the motherboard chipset instead of being actual cards, but okay.
B: And the video cards have GPUs in them!
A: Yes, I suppose they do.
B: So which GPU families should we support?
A: I don't know. I'm not even sure I can reliably name any popular GPU families off the top of my head. I guess Intel and NVidia make GPUs? I think my desktop machine might have an Intel GPU in it. If you think it matters, just go find out what kind of GPU is in your own development machine and support that, okay? Our customers probably have machines very much like yours.
B: Good, that's what I wanted to do anyway.
B: Point two. "What kind of doughnut would you like to eat at the staff meeting next week?"
A: Glazed termite. But why are you asking me that, Friend Bandicoot? The office manager always arranges for the doughnuts. You don't have to think about it. Especially not when you're wearing your software engineering pants - I'm sorry, trousers.
B: Well, it's important to get it right. When you wear your management sweater, you know that properly fed staff are productive staff, Friend Aardvark.
A: I suppose so.
B: Point three. "What colour was the bear?"
A: I don't understand that question at all.
B: Well, suppose there was a bear...
A: What bear?
B: Just suppose.
A: What *is* a bear?
B: A large carnivorous mammal not native to the places where aardvarks and bandicoots live.
A: All right. So I'm imagining this imaginary creature...
B: Bears are real!
A: Okay, but I've never seen one.
B: What colour was it?
A: The bear I never saw?
B: That's right.
A: I'm sorry, I have work to do today, and so have you. Please just go write that code. The customers are getting antsy, and not the good kind of ants, either.
The author has been informed that most species of bears are de facto omnivores despite being classified in the order Carnivora. However, this fact is probably unknown to the Bandicoot, who barely passed high-school biology; and it should be clear after a little thought why the specific bear in the question is one of the carnivorous ones.
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