4 ms·

"No mathematical theorem, no enjoyable novel, no work of art of any importance, have ever been produced by a herd. I fail to see why innovative software ought

"No mathematical theorem, no enjoyable novel, no work of art of any importance, have ever been produced by a herd. I fail to see why innovative software ought to play by a different set of rules." Nobody tell this guy about Bourbaki... He's also probably never enjoyed a movie.

sildur 7y ago
A novel also is produced by a “herd”. There are a lot of people involved. People that make suggestions, corrections, the editor... It’s not a single person effort.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  Naked Came the Stranger was written, not just produced, by a herd, to massive success. (It was intended to fail, and the herd writing was an element of that intention, but none of that stopped it from experiencing massive success.)
  - 0xcde4c3db 7y ago
    See also: Atlanta Nights, another sort of "successful failure" group-written project meant to demonstrate that an alleged "publisher" was really a vanity press with no actual standards or editorial process. You can now buy the book via various links from the official website of the "author" [1], but in case you're in need of a few giggles right this minute, the submitted manuscript was also released by one of the conspirators [2]. [1] http://www.travistea.com/ http://www.travistea.com/ [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20050305143929/http://www.cs.du.edu/~aburt/StingManuscript.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20050305143929/http://www.cs.du....
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Is that…all? It says 71,503 words at the top but I only see a hundred…
      - 0xcde4c3db 7y ago
        It's readable (y'know, technically) for me in Firefox 71. Maybe there's something weird about the PDF?
- coldtea 7y ago
  The single person is the one who does the conception and creation. That proof-readers, editors, etc work on it too is inconsequential. TFA didn't say more than one person can't contribute something or work an artistic project. It said that one or a very few people have the direction and the overall command and vision -- e.g. the opposite of "community process" or "design by committee".
- benibela 7y ago
  However, you can still read a novel the same after someone else makes corrections or add things, even if the new things are not good. Software can become complete broken by a bad patch. That is seen the best at security issues. Like someone thinks it is a good idea to add a heartbeat extension to ssl. A basically pointless extension, if you have a novel with a pointless appendix from an editor, basically no one would read the appendix and it does not matter that it is there. But with software it ruins the entire server security completely It is better to pass on 100 good patches than risking one bad patch
Koshkin 7y ago
Well, to be fair, a textbook is not a theorem or an enjoyable novel... Also, a movie is not made by a “herd” (unless one thinks of a company as a herd.) Wikipedia would be a better example.
- eindiran 7y ago
  The Elements of Mathematics volumes weren't exactly textbooks and contained novel proofs. Also, the Bourbaki group published some papers containing novel theorems. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbaki%E2%80%93Witt_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbaki%E2%80%93Witt_theorem
joppy 7y ago
Bourbaki were certainly made up of a collection of leading mathematicians, but the works of Bourbaki are not innovations themselves. As much as I love the books, they do not contain major new results, rather they are an excellent organisation of pre-existing knowledge, perhaps with some novel proofs.
- sdenton4 7y ago
  Meh. Bourbaki is merely indicative... Someone who believes that only individuals can produce theorems hasn't really worked in mathematics. It's a no true Scotsman argument.
  - livueta 7y ago
    I guess Terry Tao would be a good example of collaborative mathematics? He was mentioned in another thread and I noticed the following while reading his wiki page: > Within the field of mathematics, Tao is known for his collaboration with Ben J. Green of Oxford University; together they proved the Green–Tao theorem. Known for his collaborative mindset, by 2006, Tao had worked with over 30 others in his discoveries,[15] reaching 68 co-authors by October 2015.
    - sdenton4 7y ago
      Indeed! Erdos is another great example. 1200+ collaborative papers.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
The Bible has something like 40 authors. It would probably be classified as a "work of art of importance", even if you don't classify it as anything more than that.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I would say of course, there is art to be found in it, but as a whole, it's obviously not a work of art simply because it's a bunch of unrelated and overlapping pieces, with arbitrary parts removed via historical accident, no matter how much people try to claim otherwise.
- zzo38computer 7y ago
  The Bible is a collection of many different texts; that is why it has many authors. While it can be evaluated as the whole collection, I think that each book of the Bible can be evaluated by its own, too. Actually, the book of Genesis does seem to come from multiple sources; also, it is believed that parts of the Gospels come from the Q Gospel, so even then there are different authors adding stuff within a single book.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  First they said there was just one God, and the Bible contains "His" words. Then it turned out there were actually three, and one of them is edible and tastes just like crackers and wine. Now you're telling me there are 40? JFC, get your story straight, Christians!
coldtea 7y ago
Bourbaki summed, did not innovate. Movies are also team work only in the sense of many people working under the vision of a single person: the director. But that's also true for any system designed by 1-2-3 people where 100s also work on.
zzo38computer 7y ago
Not all open source software is produced by a "herd"; many are written by one person. My own projects I write by myself; often there are no other contributors at all (although I do accept bug reports and sometimes accept contributed code too, I am the only maintainer). SQLite is a good open source software project (there are some proprietary extensions, but the core system is open source, and there are also open source extensions which are as good as the proprietary ones if you do not need the warranties and professional support they provide), and is written by only three people. Still, the commit history is public and I often look to see what changes they will have in the next version (and in one case, even found a bug and reported it, and they quickly corrected it). I have heard Bourbaki before but didn't know much about that, but now I look it up and I can see what it is. I did not know that Bourbaki is actually a group of mathematicians, but I looked and now I know. I also did not know that the "dangerous bend" sign used by Knuth was invented by Bourbaki.

sildur 7y ago

A novel also is produced by a “herd”. There are a lot of people involved. People that make suggestions, corrections, the editor... It’s not a single person effort.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
Naked Came the Stranger was written, not just produced, by a herd, to massive success. (It was intended to fail, and the herd writing was an element of that intention, but none of that stopped it from experiencing massive success.)
- 0xcde4c3db 7y ago
  See also: Atlanta Nights, another sort of "successful failure" group-written project meant to demonstrate that an alleged "publisher" was really a vanity press with no actual standards or editorial process. You can now buy the book via various links from the official website of the "author" [1], but in case you're in need of a few giggles right this minute, the submitted manuscript was also released by one of the conspirators [2]. [1] http://www.travistea.com/ http://www.travistea.com/ [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20050305143929/http://www.cs.du.edu/~aburt/StingManuscript.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20050305143929/http://www.cs.du....
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Is that…all? It says 71,503 words at the top but I only see a hundred…
    - 0xcde4c3db 7y ago
      It's readable (y'know, technically) for me in Firefox 71. Maybe there's something weird about the PDF?
coldtea 7y ago
The single person is the one who does the conception and creation. That proof-readers, editors, etc work on it too is inconsequential. TFA didn't say more than one person can't contribute something or work an artistic project. It said that one or a very few people have the direction and the overall command and vision -- e.g. the opposite of "community process" or "design by committee".
benibela 7y ago
However, you can still read a novel the same after someone else makes corrections or add things, even if the new things are not good. Software can become complete broken by a bad patch. That is seen the best at security issues. Like someone thinks it is a good idea to add a heartbeat extension to ssl. A basically pointless extension, if you have a novel with a pointless appendix from an editor, basically no one would read the appendix and it does not matter that it is there. But with software it ruins the entire server security completely It is better to pass on 100 good patches than risking one bad patch

Koshkin 7y ago

Well, to be fair, a textbook is not a theorem or an enjoyable novel... Also, a movie is not made by a “herd” (unless one thinks of a company as a herd.) Wikipedia would be a better example.

eindiran 7y ago
The Elements of Mathematics volumes weren't exactly textbooks and contained novel proofs. Also, the Bourbaki group published some papers containing novel theorems. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbaki%E2%80%93Witt_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbaki%E2%80%93Witt_theorem

joppy 7y ago

Bourbaki were certainly made up of a collection of leading mathematicians, but the works of Bourbaki are not innovations themselves. As much as I love the books, they do not contain major new results, rather they are an excellent organisation of pre-existing knowledge, perhaps with some novel proofs.

sdenton4 7y ago
Meh. Bourbaki is merely indicative... Someone who believes that only individuals can produce theorems hasn't really worked in mathematics. It's a no true Scotsman argument.
- livueta 7y ago
  I guess Terry Tao would be a good example of collaborative mathematics? He was mentioned in another thread and I noticed the following while reading his wiki page: > Within the field of mathematics, Tao is known for his collaboration with Ben J. Green of Oxford University; together they proved the Green–Tao theorem. Known for his collaborative mindset, by 2006, Tao had worked with over 30 others in his discoveries,[15] reaching 68 co-authors by October 2015.
  - sdenton4 7y ago
    Indeed! Erdos is another great example. 1200+ collaborative papers.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

The Bible has something like 40 authors. It would probably be classified as a "work of art of importance", even if you don't classify it as anything more than that.

perl4ever 7y ago
I would say of course, there is art to be found in it, but as a whole, it's obviously not a work of art simply because it's a bunch of unrelated and overlapping pieces, with arbitrary parts removed via historical accident, no matter how much people try to claim otherwise.
zzo38computer 7y ago
The Bible is a collection of many different texts; that is why it has many authors. While it can be evaluated as the whole collection, I think that each book of the Bible can be evaluated by its own, too. Actually, the book of Genesis does seem to come from multiple sources; also, it is believed that parts of the Gospels come from the Q Gospel, so even then there are different authors adding stuff within a single book.
DonHopkins 7y ago
First they said there was just one God, and the Bible contains "His" words. Then it turned out there were actually three, and one of them is edible and tastes just like crackers and wine. Now you're telling me there are 40? JFC, get your story straight, Christians!

coldtea 7y ago

Bourbaki summed, did not innovate. Movies are also team work only in the sense of many people working under the vision of a single person: the director. But that's also true for any system designed by 1-2-3 people where 100s also work on.

zzo38computer 7y ago

Not all open source software is produced by a "herd"; many are written by one person. My own projects I write by myself; often there are no other contributors at all (although I do accept bug reports and sometimes accept contributed code too, I am the only maintainer). SQLite is a good open source software project (there are some proprietary extensions, but the core system is open source, and there are also open source extensions which are as good as the proprietary ones if you do not need the warranties and professional support they provide), and is written by only three people. Still, the commit history is public and I often look to see what changes they will have in the next version (and in one case, even found a bug and reported it, and they quickly corrected it). I have heard Bourbaki before but didn't know much about that, but now I look it up and I can see what it is. I did not know that Bourbaki is actually a group of mathematicians, but I looked and now I know. I also did not know that the "dangerous bend" sign used by Knuth was invented by Bourbaki.