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Just logically, a point can never be disproven with bad examples. Bad examples may be unpersuasive, may bore the reader, but they don't make a true point false.
by alexandercrohde 8y ago
Just logically, a point can never be disproven with bad examples. Bad examples may be unpersuasive, may bore the reader, but they don't make a true point false.
As best I can tell when you call his point "vacuous" you mean you think it's too abstract to be practical. I disagree.
What I take a away from his article is:
- Before you build something, ask yourself "Is this REALLY a technical problem? Or is it better solved non-technically?"
- What are the costs, especially complexity, of this change? Weigh those against the benefit.
Seems concrete and useful to me.
- lmm 8y ago> Seems concrete and useful to me. It sounds useful. But Westheide followed this methodology, presumably put time and effort into it, and yet made completely wrong technical decisions. So I don't believe the method can possibly be useful; he'd've got better results by saving his time and flipping a coin. (Put another way, this methodology doesn't outperform a placebo)
- alexandercrohde 8y agoYou know that's a bad argument. You can't definitively say "one person tried to follow a piece of advice and it didn't help one person therefore the advice is false/wrong/worthless." I'm sure if you thought about this though that would be pretty clear to you.
- lmm 8y ago> You know that's a bad argument. You can't definitively say "one person tried to follow a piece of advice and it didn't help one person therefore the advice is false/wrong/worthless." But this isn't just one person trying - this is the example given by the person giving the advice, so it's presumably the strongest case they can make in favour of their advice.