4 ms·

Peter Naur's paper 'Programming as theory building' is perhaps the most lucid, thought provoking and practically usefull single thing I have ever read on the so

by fsloth 11y ago

Peter Naur's paper 'Programming as theory building' is perhaps the most lucid, thought provoking and practically usefull single thing I have ever read on the sociological aspects of software engineering. Right there with the Brook's "Mythical man month" ( but the value density of the former is much higher, since it's a paper and the latter is a book).

wclax04 11y ago
Link to the paper: http://www.dc.uba.ar/materias/plp/cursos/material/programmingAsTheoryBuilding http://www.dc.uba.ar/materias/plp/cursos/material/programmin...
- hcrisp 11y ago
  Briefly looking at the paper, it seems what he calls the "theory of the program" is akin to what Fred Brooks called "conceptual integrity". Am I wrong?
  - dang 11y ago
    I think that's right. The terms 'design' and 'model' are often used for this nowadays. Naur's point is that a program is a shared mental construct that lives in the minds of the people who build it. The source code is not the program. It's the canonical written representation, but a lossy one.
  - jasode 11y ago
    It also has a lot of overlap with the concept of "tacit knowledge": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge The programmer is unable to completely and unambiguously articulate the "design" in source code and documentation. Yes, the source code can be improved with with longer names of variables and functions in addition to liberal code comments. And documentation can be expanded to include chapters on "architectural overview" and "technical motivations" to help fill the gaps but it will inevitably be incomplete.
- santiagobasulto 11y ago
  UBA is a University in Argentina. Happy to see they include it in their curriculum :)
dang 11y ago
I agree. Years if not decades ahead of its time. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=programming%20as%20theory%20building&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?query=programming%20as%20theory%20bu...
- fanf2 11y ago
  Peter Naur was editor of the Algol 60 report, and with foresight, cunning, and a bit of trickery, he is responsible for getting recursion into a mainstream programming language. https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/how-recursion-got-into-programming-a-comedy-of-errors-3/ https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/how-recursion-got-...
agumonkey 11y ago
Ha, another work I get to know by its author's death ... sigh. Obiwan's quote get boring.
- viewer5 11y ago
  Which quote's that?
  - mattlutze 11y ago
    "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." ^ Is the one that comes to mind? Or maybe "[...] I'm getting too old for this sort of thing." or "An elegant weapon... for a more civilized age." Actually now that I think about it, I really don't know what the parent was referring to.
    - amyjess 11y ago
      I was thinking "Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time." It fits. With both Murdock and Naur, both of them were names I was familiar with but hadn't heard anything about for quite a while... until I heard they both died.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    mattlutze's first one. The fact that passing away spread his influence even more. Even though the 'name I havent heard in a long time' could also fit.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

by fsloth 11y ago

wclax04 11y ago

Link to the paper: http://www.dc.uba.ar/materias/plp/cursos/material/programmingAsTheoryBuilding http://www.dc.uba.ar/materias/plp/cursos/material/programmin...

hcrisp 11y ago
Briefly looking at the paper, it seems what he calls the "theory of the program" is akin to what Fred Brooks called "conceptual integrity". Am I wrong?
- dang 11y ago
  I think that's right. The terms 'design' and 'model' are often used for this nowadays. Naur's point is that a program is a shared mental construct that lives in the minds of the people who build it. The source code is not the program. It's the canonical written representation, but a lossy one.
- jasode 11y ago
  It also has a lot of overlap with the concept of "tacit knowledge": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge The programmer is unable to completely and unambiguously articulate the "design" in source code and documentation. Yes, the source code can be improved with with longer names of variables and functions in addition to liberal code comments. And documentation can be expanded to include chapters on "architectural overview" and "technical motivations" to help fill the gaps but it will inevitably be incomplete.
santiagobasulto 11y ago
UBA is a University in Argentina. Happy to see they include it in their curriculum :)

dang 11y ago

I agree. Years if not decades ahead of its time. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=programming%20as%20theory%20building&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?query=programming%20as%20theory%20bu...

fanf2 11y ago
Peter Naur was editor of the Algol 60 report, and with foresight, cunning, and a bit of trickery, he is responsible for getting recursion into a mainstream programming language. https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/how-recursion-got-into-programming-a-comedy-of-errors-3/ https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/how-recursion-got-...

agumonkey 11y ago

Ha, another work I get to know by its author's death ... sigh. Obiwan's quote get boring.

viewer5 11y ago
Which quote's that?
- mattlutze 11y ago
  "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." ^ Is the one that comes to mind? Or maybe "[...] I'm getting too old for this sort of thing." or "An elegant weapon... for a more civilized age." Actually now that I think about it, I really don't know what the parent was referring to.
  - amyjess 11y ago
    I was thinking "Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time." It fits. With both Murdock and Naur, both of them were names I was familiar with but hadn't heard anything about for quite a while... until I heard they both died.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  mattlutze's first one. The fact that passing away spread his influence even more. Even though the 'name I havent heard in a long time' could also fit.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]