Hi Dave,
I thought my email hadn't made it through!
Actually, I was being somewhat facetious. But I do completely DISagree with
your contention that Occam's Razor is a merely explanatory principle.
Perhaps that was Occam's intention (perhaps), but that does not have to
prevent us from discovering further applications. Intelligence is largely
about finding patterns and analogies from one field to the next, after all.
Are you truly suggesting that, all other things being equal, the simplest
way is not to be preferred??
I'll also be real picky, and point out that ethics certainly IS a branch of
axiology, actually one of the two main branches, the other being aesthetics.
Hardly anyone talks about axiology anymore, a little like metaphysics, but
if you've ever read Zen and the Art of MotorCycle Maintenance, then that's
really axiology, pure and simple. And you weren't aware that there is "an
area of study dedicated to
programming aesthetics"? It's called philosophy ;-) For every endeavour X
you can name, there's a Philosophy of X. It's the first and last
discipline. That's why you majored in it, right?
Harking back to your original response, you say that programmers use
complexity to make things simple for their clients, or something along those
lines. In this, I couldn't disagree more. Surely programmers get around
complexity by breaking it down into the simple. I don't USE complexity at
all - it's too difficult for me. I use the simple, in order to achieve the
complex.
Why is it that so many liberal arts people end up building web applications?
Talk soon, Dave,
Lee.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Watts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
zor
...
It was hardly my intent to downplay either the value of Occam's Razor, or
anyone's education. However, you've mentioned several points with which I
disagree, and in William's defense, he might very well be the first to warn
against using his razor inappropriately. So, here goes.
First, I wasn't aware that there was an area of study dedicated to
programming aesthetics. I don't get out enough. Still, in a very immature
field like programming - in which first-order principles haven't been fully
agreed upon, as far as I can tell - it seems a bit premature to discuss
aesthetics. I wasn't much into aesthetics anyway, but ethics, my personal
area of interest, does fall within axiology, and we managed to get by
without too much simplicity! In fact, I can't recall once the advocacy of a
particular ethical system based on its simplicity.
...
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