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> Would you trust a programmer who answers a question with "Well I feel like X is true, therefore that is what we should do." Absolutely. Preparing formal proo
by randomdata 14y ago
> Would you trust a programmer who answers a question with "Well I feel like X is true, therefore that is what we should do."
Absolutely. Preparing formal proofs for every possible option is logistically impossible. A good programmer will have an intuition and form an opinion about which options are better suited for the given problem. With that, even the best programmers can get it wrong sometimes - they too are only human.
- chimeracoder 14y agoYou're conflating two things - in one situation, an objective answer exists ('Which database is best for our purposes, for some understood definition of 'best'?), and the means for identifying that answer are clear (ie, performance testing/profiling), but it's logistically impractical to carry out that process. In the other, there is no objective answer: even the most debated political topics are inherently subjective, because the tradeoffs involved are value judgements (ie, whose satisfaction is worth more? is X/Y/Z immoral?) and there's no process - however slow - that will prove an 'objective' answer to, say, whether abortion/gay marriage is 'moral', or whether it is 'moral' to tax the rich to feed the poor.