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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 :)