checking if a list is empty

[Chris Angelico]

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Hans Georg Schaathun <hg at schaathun.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 12 May 2011 01:49:05 -0400, D'Arcy J.M. Cain
>  <darcy at druid.net> wrote:
> :  That's not programming.  That's using a canned app that a programmer
> :  wrote that takes your unstructured input and does something useful with
> :  it.  Spreadsheets are a primitive example of that.  Google is a more
> :  advanced example.
>
> You are really trying to defend the programmers' status as a modern
> day priesthood, mastering a mystic art completely inaccessible to
> those not initiated.

Anyone can join. Not everyone wants to join. Me, I'm happy here as a
priest of the software industry, and I have no desire to become a
priest of, say, automotive engineering or concrete pouring. Would an
expert concreter be expected to explain to me exactly how to make
different sorts of concrete, or would he be expected simply to fulfill
his contract and provide me with my structure?

Chris Angelico