4 ms·

I would argue exactly the reverse.

• fastball 9y ago
  As a software engineer with a degree in Physics and a degree in Biomedical Engineering, you're both wrong.
  • mercer 9y ago
    Care to elaborate? Physics has always been the 'what-if' scenario for me so I'm very curious!
    • fastball 9y ago
      Yep, see my reply to vacri.
      • mercer 9y ago
        Thanks. It's a good reply :).
  • vacri 9y ago
    I'm a software engineer with a degree in neurophysiology (partial phd), though no degree in physics (just an interest). Would you care to actually back up your appeal-to-authority there with some actual commentary? Or are we just going to compare dick sizes?
    • fastball 9y ago
      Sure. A craft is something you get better at by improving the constituent skills that are required in that craft. For instance, in woodworking, it takes some level of skill to work with hammer and nails, or to sand a board, etc. etc. So programming is not a craft. Programming, at its core, is problem solving, and getting better at programming requires improving one's problem solving ability. Physics is also about problem solving, and is likewise improved by improving one's PS ability. However, having heavily experienced both, I would say that they are very different types of problem solving. Modern programming is a lot of trial and error, ala any other type of "invention". "I did not fail, I now know 1000 ways to not make a lightbulb" - Edison. Modern physics is not really trial and error. Physics is applied math. You take some fundamental principles, combine them together in a logical way, and get something new. At a high level, that sounds like programming. But for me personally, and I think for many people, the fundamental thought process and approach to problem solving in the two fields is very different.
      • cr0sh 9y ago
        > Modern programming is a lot of trial and error If you follow Uncle Bob's TDD methodology, it becomes much less so.