Re: button-hole problem

Larry Siebenmann wrote:

> Geometers like to avoid this sort of hair splitting by discussing 
> generic cases only.
> 
> Whether programmers can afford to do likewise is a good question.

They cannot.   I have occasionally met with an attitude among mathematicians
and physicists, that once they'd proven that a solution existed, they had
solved the problem, upon which they lost interest.  From my point of view,
that's just the beginning.  I have almost never implemented any non-trivial
feature in any program without having to revise my theory.   Sometimes, I've
even had to revise my views about what was trivial and what wasn't.   

Incidentally, the balance between the theoretical and the practical is one of
the things I admire most about Knuth's work.

Laurence