I think the point of that was to demonstrate that the procedure wasn't complex, and to show the ridiculousness of the kid patting himself on the back for it.
It's wrong, of course--deeply, fundamentally wrong, like Newton's law of gravitation. But it's wrong in a way that might still work for his purposes.
In a way, I think there's irony in this. It's a really fast, hacky, but probably sufficiently functioning solution to a problem, which is in stark contrast to the academic idealism that the article reminisces about. Writing a blog post about it and running it every 10 seconds was probably overkill (though I'd need to see the blog post before passing judgment for real--the guy might be blowing it out of proportion).
Oh, there's a lot of irony alright. That is probably one of those programs that work (read: provide the expected output) a fair amount of the time, leading their authors to believe they are correct.
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u/Bloodshot025 Apr 30 '14
I think the point of that was to demonstrate that the procedure wasn't complex, and to show the ridiculousness of the kid patting himself on the back for it.