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> It's a craft, not a science. I feel exactly the same way. It turns out everything practical I do with software depends more on the "spider sense" part of it

by guscost 11y ago

> It's a craft, not a science. I feel exactly the same way. It turns out everything practical I do with software depends more on the "spider sense" part of it rather than some well-defined knowledge (which is easy to look up when needed, so maybe that has something to do with it). The spider sense is not something you can teach or memorize, and it takes a while to develop. Programming is exactly like a craft in that way. But there is plenty of better understood theory and experiment out there which if anything is the science part. From the theory and experiment I've dabbled with it's very much a different thing. And it has a lot to do with the existence of radically different schools of programming. There's a joke, the engineer is showing a laser pointer to the scientist. The scientist asks "why didn't you get an ultraviolet laser when those output far higher energies?" and the engineer says "it's for shining a dot on the wall."

saganus 11y ago
I think what I was trying to say it's not really that developers are divorced from science, but that the day-to-day tasks that we do end up being far from whatever paper or thesis taught us how to do. The example that comes to mind is REST. There is a lot more in that PhD thesis than what is actually used and implemented outside of the lab. That's what I meant for craft. In the end I don't see anyone implementing "all the science" regarding REST, only those parts that are needed and even then... as best as some engineers understood it (myself included of course). That's also the reason why we end up calling "RESTFul" a lot of stuff that Thomas Fielding clearly states is not. At least it's good knowing that I'm not alone and other people feel the same. So in the end I know that I can do my best... but not more. It's a funny beast this development thingie... Edit: So basically just reinforcing your point...

by guscost 11y ago

saganus 11y ago

I think what I was trying to say it's not really that developers are divorced from science, but that the day-to-day tasks that we do end up being far from whatever paper or thesis taught us how to do. The example that comes to mind is REST. There is a lot more in that PhD thesis than what is actually used and implemented outside of the lab. That's what I meant for craft. In the end I don't see anyone implementing "all the science" regarding REST, only those parts that are needed and even then... as best as some engineers understood it (myself included of course). That's also the reason why we end up calling "RESTFul" a lot of stuff that Thomas Fielding clearly states is not. At least it's good knowing that I'm not alone and other people feel the same. So in the end I know that I can do my best... but not more. It's a funny beast this development thingie... Edit: So basically just reinforcing your point...