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> The nature of software prevents experience. This feels like a profound statement about programming work. And at the same time, I find myself pushing back on
by dhosek 4y ago
> The nature of software prevents experience.
This feels like a profound statement about programming work. And at the same time, I find myself pushing back on it in that we end up encountering things that are enough like something else but can’t be encapsulated in a library that experience still counts, whether that surfaces in the form of common practices (algorithms, design patterns, programming idioms, etc.) or just plain experience (I’ve seen this king of bug before).
- hyperthesis 4y agoI think it's true in that context, of similar buildings, with similar floors. People are clever, and can optimize repetitive work. Out of context, I intended it to express an ideal, that we should strive to encapsulate our experience, of those similarities. One barrier is insufficient data to formalize just what that similarity is, and how it applies across different scenarios, especially when hidden amongst other factors. Arguably, ChatGPT is a way of capturing such similarities - though not in a library. I agree your suggestion of standard practices is difficult to capture. They are a kind of language for communication with other programmers, so encapsulating them defeats their purpose. Debugging is another good one - if the same type of bug keeps coming up, can we automate it away? If so, is that solution "software". Another task that is difficult to capture is defining the problem, because this involves the world, with all its detail and complexity to cut through - though some would say that "isn't software".