Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!paladin.american.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!munnari.oz.au!cs.mu.OZ.AU!munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU!fjh
From: fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson)
Subject: Re: Prolog syntax
Message-ID: <9512423.9130@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
Sender: news@cs.mu.OZ.AU (CS-Usenet)
Organization: Computer Science, University of Melbourne, Australia
References: <9511221.23905@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> <3nkjnc$q0o@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> <9512019.12772@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> <3o55f0$c1m@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>
Date: Thu, 4 May 1995 13:42:17 GMT
Lines: 24

ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:

>zs@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Zoltan Somogyi) writes:
>    Can you spot the error?
>Yes, of course.
>    If yes, how long did it take you?
>By actual measurement, 14 seconds, with no machine aids.
>Zoltan writes
>    Perhaps it is myeyesight that is to blame, but I needed about three
>    minutes to find the error
>I'm pretty sure Zoltan's eyesight is better than mine.  I suspect that it
>is a question of syntax-error-debugging-strategies.

I suspect that this may also be due in part to a rule that I have heard
referred to as the "First law of debugging", namely that "it takes two
people to find a bug".  Often it is easier for someone other than the
original programmer to find a bug, because the original programmer
often fails to notice mistakes in parts of the code that they assume to
be correct.

-- 
Fergus Henderson                       | I'll forgive even GNU emacs as
fjh@cs.mu.oz.au                        | long as gcc is available ;-)
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh            |             - Linus Torvalds
