2 ms·
I wonder how many of the problems that plague the standardization of software engineering reduce to some form of Godel's incompleteness theorem? My thinking is
by yters 18y ago
I wonder how many of the problems that plague the standardization of software engineering reduce to some form of Godel's incompleteness theorem?
My thinking is this: unlike the artifacts of other engineering disciplines, programs can be self referential. Thus, they can meet the basic criteria for Godel's theorem to hold. Godel's theorem states that for a formal system meeting these criteria, not all true statements can be generated from its rule base.
So, if we can say true statements are equivalent to use cases, and design patterns are equivalent to rule bases, then it may be demonstrable that software engineering is actually an unsolvable problem, at least in the large. Thus, there is then a rigorous argument that programming should also (but not only, since there are good software engineering insights) be considered an art in order to be accomplished effectively.