Unknown Environments

Here’s Knuth in an inter­view: As to your real ques­tion, the idea of imme­di­ate com­pi­la­tion and “unit tests” appeals to me only rarely, when I’m feel­ing my way in a totally unknown envi­ron­ment and need feed­back about what works and what doesn’t… Hmm, peo­ple who are “feel­ing their way in a totally unknown envi­ron­ment”… Like …

*Ding*

The second-biggest Shia spir­i­tual leader (who, per­fectly enough, I’ve never heard of) was quoted on NPR today from some­thing he said last Friday (2006 – 09 – 22) as say­ing that there is no “con­flict of civ­i­liza­tions”, only a “con­flict of igno­rance”. Which is as near to cor­rect as any state­ment yet on the cur­rent West vs. Mid-East “blow …