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"A straw man ... is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the proper idea of argument under discu
by SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
"A straw man ... is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the proper idea of argument under discussion was not addressed or properly refuted.[3] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man". "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
- chrisdirkis 6y agoI don't think it's a straw man to note that what you want (rigour) comes with a cost (accessibility of development). The decline in rigour among applied computer science corresponded with an increase in software availability, economic output, and probably also literal lives saved. I don't deny that it's frustrating to be stuck with poor choices, ones which cause confusion and make development difficult. However, I think that this method got more software in the hands of people sooner than the counterfactual high rigour world. There's definitely an argument to be made that there's an inflection point, where the rigourous method is slower up until some point where it becomes a better baseline, and from there software development accelerates and overtakes our current world. I think it's hard to be confident in that argument, though.