What is UP with...

scientists who are also programmers? (apologies to J, who is not this type...)

Here's the gist of a recent conversation:

Me: Does this widget graph the sum or the average?

Him: Average, but it doesn't matter.

Me: Yes it does.

Him: The only difference is that you divide by the number of pixels. It's a constant. It doesn't matter.

Me: But most of my pixels contain only noise. So the average doesn't tell me what I need to know. The average tells me there's nothing there, because on average, there isn't.

Him: You're just off by a constant.

Me: Sort of. But not really. I'm really beating down the signal, by averaging over all the noise. If I sum, I know how much signal I have, but if I average, I know some kind of signal per pixel, which is really, really tiny, because I'm looking at emission in a really tiny area. That's not what I want it to do. I want to see a graph of the signal, and I can't do that if I've just averaged it to zero.

Him: So just multiply by the number of pixels.

Me: But the way the widget works, I get there by drawing a box with the mouse around the object, and the widget doesn't tell me how many pixels it has. And anyway, how am I supposed to do a multiplication in the widget, so I get a graph of what I want?

Him: So just make a one pixel box.

Me: But that's a huge pain. Why should I have to go and make a bunch of one pixel boxes, when if I could just get the sum, it wouldn't be a problem? And how is that going to help anyway, because I don't have a way to add the pixels together again?

Him (condescendingly): You're not making any sense. It's just a constant offset, and it doesn't matter. I mean, come on. It's basic arithmetic. If you divide, and then you multiply, that's the same as not doing anything at all.

Me: (sigh. Rapid silent search for compromise...) Can you humor me, and make it so I can choose if it will sum or average? Some people might want one or the other.

Him: (walking away from me...) That doesn't make any sense. No. It averages. That's what it does.

Me: (grumble, grumble, grumble)

Now I am trying to figure out a way to sum, but not average.

Grumble, grumble...