2025-04-04 17:33:05 - Paul D. Foy -
Sharing my experiences with using chatGPT for software development, I can say that as an experienced engineer it is very helpful. I program in many languages and go through periods of forgetting one language in preference to another. ChatGPT is incredibly good at sorting out rusty language points for you. It also has an extremely good knowledge of all the well known coding techniques, of tips and tricks, and of the detail of code of established structures or classes. It can knock up the framework of something established for you instantly. I'm still probably using it in a conservative, traditional way, in that if I don't understand the code I will not, long term use it. So I'm not using it as a black box. I would say it adds to experience, rather than a substitute for it. So the software engineer is not yet a redundant job as somehow you've still got to put some effort in to get the basics and to know better what to do. There's certainly a role still for the mathematician and the doer of algorithms that are in some sense original or not established, or not amenable to an AI approach (Formations of Groups?).

2025-03-31 13:54:23 - Paul D. Foy -
On the subject of coding and software development the paradigm has changed since I engaged in many areas of this just 6 perhaps 12 years ago. It is now possible to engage in development activities with sketchy knowledge of the coding techniques or methodologies and can use tools such as ChatGPT as a very useful guide. It save saves lots of time. I do now see the usefulness of having engaged in developments beforehand - so education and your early years experience is very important. Those who mess about with the young men and women at this stage are very nasty people. It seems the trailblazers in this computing area were young men (mainly) who could see more than their educators (the Bill Gates etc. ). These comments are equally true for many disciplines, certainly Group Theory where the period of struggle at University (for next to no monetary award) set me up for developments many years later.

2025-03-23 20:54:25 - Paul D. Foy -
There's also sometimes other factors that mitigate against the formal aesthetically pleasing structured approach from the outset. The problem might have challenging memory and speed issues which might prevent the more structured object orientated approach - the programmer has to rely on intricate special techniques.

2025-03-23 17:07:03 - Paul D. Foy -
When offering advice and guidance into how to set about doing something (certainly for the first time) in the programming sphere I would give the same advice as mathematicians offered me about their subject and in which I concur with in both the computing and mathematical words. If you are thinking about how to approach a problem there are probably two distinct ways. I formal, precise up front design driven approach based on planning and prior experience. Secondly an informal looser, intuitive approach based on seeing it, seeing how to do it and then just diving in. In the last resort I would urge the latter. For you gain experience, you see the problems, you learn. And then you can put the formal structural way into practice more effectively and thoroughly. Only by doing the latter do you learn the former. And also if you are stuck, do what the mathematician does, develop structure, polish the things you need to develop inspiration for the solution. Mathematics and computing are very similar, related disciplines. Try the intuitive and then fall back on the structured. These notions probably apply to many disciplines of which I am not as familiar.

2024-09-07 12:17:27 - Paul D. Foy -
One finds in software that it is not sufficient just to tell somebody what and what not to do (to write a manual) but you have got to actively go out of your way to guide them in the courses of action that are possible. You have even got to bar courses of action which lead to deleterious outcomes. Software then is a bit of a nanny state of affairs, but it has to be like this because sometimes not following the 'correct' course of action (for whatever reason) can lead to unwanted, even serious consequences. This website is not a plane that could crash and kill people, but it could still crash and cause an inconvenience (not least to me).

2024-09-05 04:14:11 - Paul D. Foy -
The computerisation of life is probably as fundamental phenomena as the industrial revolution of the (predominantly) 19th century. It is a revolution in many related ways which can broadly be categorised as computerisation (computer control), digitisation and the communication of an online (internet) world. As with the industrial revolution, the railroad expansion this is affecting society in some negative ways for various reasons: there is the concentration of influence, control, and knowledge in the entities (organisations, individuals) which are the technical elite, the knowers; with the exclusion of others. These entities have considerable power which could be used poorly, for their benefit only. And as with earlier revolutions the advantages have been scarred by fiduciary matters, by the use of the only understood (by everybody) facet of a good or service - money. But money is not that straightforward - money is an abstraction of labour, the value of peoples' efforts between themselves - a token of exchange. Perhaps thirdly is the breakdown in communications because computers (the online world) are replacing visiting a shop, speaking to someone for assistance etc. and there is a divide between those who can communicate in this way. Yet for those that can communicate in this way, labour is saved (hence money) and as the elite they are controlling the directions of this advance with the exclusion of others. There's a lot of phenomena that have to be harnessed for the good and I am speaking loosely in this comment.

2024-09-02 09:26:49 - Paul D. Foy -
On recollection I have reroofed a shed on my own before - when I lived in Dursley, Glos. , UK.

2024-08-31 17:17:26 - Paul D. Foy -
This afternoon me and my mother reroofed a shed at the allotment. I've probably done this job once before, helping my father when I was younger. My mother has probably helped my father do it before. I have a spinal injury so I wasn't able to get on one of the standing structures to access the roof but I could use one of them. So we probably did 50% each of the job. I had no problems putting the tar on hitting the felt tacks down. We did a good job. My mother struggled. My mother is an intelligent lady. It's not just that she is older (she is actually more physically capable than me in many regards), she didn't know how to do things, the labour saving shortcuts, the techniques. So she ended up caked in bitumen, nails dirty, and generally flustered. I was fine, clean and not flustered. Is this the same as coding for a woman, is this a man's job? What job is a woman's job may I ask? Is asking a man for a date a woman's job, or does a man do that as well. What does a woman do?.

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