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In the other sciences, you strive to take the complexity of the world and to reduce it to underlying principles. In Computer Science, you start with very simple
by forinti 9y ago
In the other sciences, you strive to take the complexity of the world and to reduce it to underlying principles. In Computer Science, you start with very simple rules and strive to build as much complexity as possible. This is what I really like about demos: they represent what I think makes programming interesting.
- westoncb 9y agoIt seems like we do go in the other direction, too, though. When computer scientists encounter some new problem domain—e.g. rendering photorealistic scenes at 60 frames per second—people analyze the domain into various 'primitives' or underlying principles. We don't have the same notion of 'truth' in selecting a set of underlying principles like you get in the sciences, though, which means multiple sets can survive and be used in different contexts (e.g. using raymarching and distance functions, versus using triangle meshes and Phong shading)—there doesn't only have to be one. Then at some point, other engineers use those 'underlying principles'/primitives in order you build up particular complex instances of whatever domain was analyzed in the previous stage—but it does start with the science-like analyzing and 'theory building' (not literally—it just has an analogous structure/role).