Software Development as a Discovery Procedure
is almost complete.
Your comments are welcomed!
(And since rob got me all ssh'ed up and sh*t, his comments be especially welcomed!)
In ancapistan, if you have no property, you have no rights
Ancaps often declare, "All rights are property rights." I was thinking about this the other day, in the context of running into libertarians online who insisted that libertarianism supports "the freedom of movement," and realized that this principle actually entails that people without property have no rights at all, let alone any right to "freedom of movement." Of course, immediately, any ancap readers still left here are going to say, "Wait a second! Everyone owns his own body! And so everyone at least has the right to not have his body interfered with." Well, that is true... except that in ancapistan, one has no right to any place to put that body, except if one owns property, or has the permission of at least one property owner to place that body on her land. So, if one is landless and penniless, one had sure better hope that there are kindly disposed property owners aligned in a corridor from wherever one happens to be to wherever the...
While I can not comment about anything Hayek has written since I've read none of it, I can comment about the writings of Alexander and Stroustrup as they were part of my formative years as a software developer. I once worked in a startup where the engineering manager was a smart guy with a lot of experience who brought the waterfall method to our shop. He had an analyst write a huge design document that we programmers were supposed to follow. "This document is the blueprint", he argued. We argued back, showed him some C++ code, gave him some books, and in the end he understood that the CODE WAS THE BLUEPRINT. Code is unique in this regard in that it is both the result of the development process, and the most accurate description of its design. I had another boss who asked us developers, "Do you want to write papers or do you want to write code?" Enough history. Gene's thesis, that writing code is a process of discovery, is absolutely accurate. It's quite the waste of time sit and think of every possible thing your code must do. You will fail to consider everything. Instead, do some basic planning, then start writing that blueprint, adjusting, learning, discovering as you go.
ReplyDeleteThe world is changing! rob and I agree on something!
DeleteMe too. Luckily we can be sure Murphy will not.
DeleteWell, apparently there is someone out there trying to make me look good ! They are way more articulate than me so I hope they continue to impersonate me on your blog.
DeleteFor what it worth - I do believe that that writing code is very much a process of discovery
Well, apparently there is someone out there trying to make me look good ! They are way more articulate than me so I hope they continue to impersonate me on your blog.
DeleteFor what it worth - I also believe that that writing code is very much a process of discovery.
Hi Rob! Yes, there are two of us here. I was hoping Gene would not notice but I think you've spilled the beans. Still, we can have a bit of fun leaving him guessing which is which.
Delete