And the graph would be many-rooted, since up until at least the 80's, compilers were often implemented from scratch in assembler, just as it happened for e.g. C.

And then it becomes much more hairy: it's been a good long time since the habit was taken to separate compilers into a front end (lexing, parsing) and a back end (optimization, code generation) with an intermediate representation; and then there are virtual machines and translators. Imagine all the possibilities! The graph would larger than Wikipedia itself!

So you're saying that this "Grace Hopper" character, far from being the role model for (female) programmers that the official history posits, was actually a spawn of the devil, the mother of the business programming scourge?

And by the way, what kind of name is "Grace Hopper"? A thinly veiled reference to the Plague of Locusts, I tell you! Isn't that definitive proof? Brace yourself, Jiminy!

In the universe we are talking about, the legal system in question is an alien one, and not every legal case has to be argued that way (with the losing lawyer dying in the end at the hands of its victor), only the most important ones: in other less important cases, honor can be restored with some kind of settlement ...

You're mostly right up to this point: in the book (which is actually not Whipping Star, but The Dosadi Experiment, the second book in the series), a powerful alien faction commits massive (planet-scale, multi-generation) human and alien rights violations...

... except Jorj X. McKie, agent extraordinaire of the Bureau of Sabotage (a government agency outgrown of the need of curbing bureaucratc efficiency, if you can imagine that!), finds out...

... and takes on the hopeless endeavour of fighting the case on enemy ground (the byzantine alien legal system, of which he is the only registered non-native lawyer), knowing full well that he must win (for the sake of all what's good, but also love and revenge), and that if he wins, he'd have to kill his opponent (a female from the alien faction) and by doing this he'd be committing murder / stellar casus belli / trespassing jurisdiction / being rude or some other gross and terrible thing, I can't remember. How will he get out of this quagmire? ;)

Sorry to disapoint! :)

From my summary, you can see clearly all the pulp elements in the book (Rightful Retribution, yeah!), but they make for an enjoyable read, and really there is a lot more to it than that: in true Frank Herberts's style, the book has very typical themes that every reader of the Dune series should be familiar with (individual behaviour and adaptation under pressure, immortality, mind games, etc.) And of course it's also a book that makes you think, so I highly recommend it.

Hope this helps

Xavier

Here you go:

:-)

In all seriousness, here is an excerpt from the letter (with original syntax but modern spelling—all in all, it is still readily legible even today—don't know if it meets the "human language requirement, though... ;), as found from TFA :

The heart of the matter is that after hearing well of one his opponents (Petit) by some visitors of him in Holland, Descartes has decided to tone down his rhetorics (presumably bitter attacks towards Petit) in his Meditations. He therefore sends this letter with explanations ans instructions to this effect to his good friend Father Mersenne in Paris, who is in charge of printing the book there.

Hope this helps

Xavier

Why, oh why, do they have to compare a cultural phenomenon (the emergence of an elite caste (sp.?), viz. the Wikipedia editors, those who are "more equal" among the equals) with natural selection? It makes no sense at all. Darwin would make a double take on this one.

Ob. old geezer lament : where are the social science of yesterday? Do these youngsters even know of "methodology" and "skewed metaphors"? (Actually this exact text was found carved in clay on sumerian tablets. I kid you not.)

Ob. disclosure : I haven't read a word of the actual article. But it goes without saying, this Slashdot after all...

Cheers,

Xavier