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I think the writer misuses the word 'Truth'. He really means something like Grice's maxims for language and communication. A couple of programmers I know have
by zipdog 16y ago
I think the writer misuses the word 'Truth'. He really means something like Grice's maxims for language and communication.
A couple of programmers I know have been reading philosophy (in particular epistemology) and applying principles from it to their coding - I was hoping the article would talk about how code really can be improved by making it Truthful in a stricter sense.
- shawndumas 16y agoyour blog url please. (you are blogging this code-epistemology odyssey, right?)
- zipdog 16y agooh, no I wasn't :( but if you give me a couple of weeks, I'll see if I can find time to start
- jsankey 16y agoAgreed. Although the post makes several good points, there isn't really a key insight there. The author fails to convincingly boil it all down to a single concept of "truth". Rather, it feels the term is just stretched this way and that to try and pull together separate ideas: "That means brevity. As Seneca said, “Truth hates delay.”" "An unnecessary global variable is not just an invitation to "bugs; if it’s overexposed, it’s lying" "If it’s a playlist, call it a playlist. Don’t call it a set. Tell the truth." The connection here is shallow: the author has merely found a way to work truth into each description. Maybe it's better to just accept that there are multiple axes of goodness (which further makes us realise sometimes they are in conflict).