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The phrase "You are Not Expected to Understand This" is probably the most famous comment in the history of Unix.
And last month, at the Systems We Love conference in San Francisco, systems researcher Arun Thomas explained to an audience exactly what it was that they weren't supposed to understand.
Computer science teacher Ozan Onay, who was in the audience, called it "one of my favorite talks of the day," writing on his blog that "Nothing should be a black box, even when Dennis Ritchie says it's ok!"
The code comment originally appeared in the Sixth Edition Unix operating system, describing context switching — or, as Thomas put it, "the mechanism that allows for time-sharing and multi-tasking ... essentially how a computer is allowed to be shared by multiple concurrent users and concurrent applications."
Thomas reminded the audience of Unix co-creator Dennis Ritchie's own "Comment about the comment" web page on the subject:
It's often quoted as a slur on the quantity or quality of the comments in the Bell Labs research releases of Unix. Not an unfair observation in general, I fear, but in this case unjustified... we tried to explain what was going on. 'You are not expected to understand this' was intended as a remark in the spirit of 'This won't be on the exam,' rather than as an impudent challenge.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Monday January 23 2017, @03:26PM
Nice quotes and amicable attitude, but unlike Mr. Hilberts and Mr. Rutherfords work in Mathmatics/Physics, these statements are not proven and not exactly in their area of expertise, and therefore doesn't carry any more weight than any other opinion. (Their statements does make at least the assumption that the first man on the street / an average barmaid is willing to listen and to put some effort. I just have to try to talk to my wife to know that the average person is not willing. Also, even after reading books from Stephen Hawking, I still only have half a clue at best of what quantum-mechanics is about. And I don't assume Hawkins doesn't know what he's talking about.)
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(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday January 23 2017, @05:13PM
> [...] these statements are not proven
Agreed, but that goes for all the statements in this thread.
> and not exactly in their area of expertise [...]
Oh, but they are, for an important part of the work of a mathematician or scientist is communicating one's ideas or findings—if only to one's colleagues.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Monday January 23 2017, @06:09PM
Agreed, but that goes for all the statements in this thread.
True. My statement was based on personal experience and what I consider common sense, which is to other readers probably not more than anecdotal evidence, maybe a hypothesis at best.
If I wanted to cite quotes, I'd refer to this page [quora.com], citing 9 comments, partly from academics, related to your citation.
and not exactly in their area of expertise [...]
Oh, but they are, for an important part of the work of a mathematician or scientist is communicating one's ideas or findings—if only to one's colleagues.
... which is a very different topic. A colleague is a paid person, who can be expected to at least try and pay attention and to have some expertise on the general topic.
But I really think we are not that far apart when it comes to the basic idea: If someone understands a topic well enough, he can structure it in a way that it becomes more digestible to others, and usually is able to give a comprehensive overview to a less informed audience.
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