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Economists have a term "economic imperialism" which means applying economics outside its traditional domains - in areas such as economic analysis of law or say
by _yosefk 11y ago
Economists have a term "economic imperialism" which means applying economics outside its traditional domains - in areas such as economic analysis of law or say family relations. I think you've just suggested "software imperialism"...
However, while it's an interesting idea, how about we deal with the ambiguities of things like programming languages (this program runs differently in these two different environments) and computer programs in general ("things stopped working after the update" - that wouldn't happen if programs depended on a formally defined and verified set of things from their environment)? And maybe tackle more complex things like precisely defining the line between flirting and sexual harassment later?
- nitrogen 11y agoI prefer the term "interdisciplinary research". Specialization of labor will lead us to a societal dead end if we just build impenetrable silos of epistemology. We have to interact to progress.
- _yosefk 11y agoPerhaps. An article currently trending on the front page about "C in practice" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9799069 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9799069) helps make my point (that we barely understand the dark corners of our tools, so perhaps venturing into other territory is a bit premature.) (Also - the extent to which almost every real-life programming language makes simple things unbelievably complicated sounds like a good example of "impenetrable silos of epistemology"... "language lawyer" is an idiom for a reason. And BTW we have waaaaay less excuses for the huge barriers to understanding that we continuously erect around our work since our subject matter is not nearly as inherently fuzzy as the stuff lawyers, lawmakers and judges deal with.)