re: marcus' comments about programming - see Peter Naur's "Programming as Theory Building" paper of long ago.
davew On Sun, Jan 20, 2013, at 11:49 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: Nick wrote: "And I Just Plain Believe in collaborative essays as a tool in the development of thought. " I think a little recognized outcome of open source software development is the development of thought, and perhaps for some of the same reasons as a collaborative essay. Creating and maintaining a useful program often involves an understanding of a large network of artifacts. The understanding needs to be precise enough to make correct small changes, and general enough to be able to approach re-design and re-implementation of those artifacts that aren't adequate. It requires being literate, because the artifacts will have designed and built over time by a team. Some artifacts will come from third parties. Open source software development is different than closed proprietary development in that the people that are participating are not trained or motivated to do a particular job. Two people may see completely different uses, or infer completely different purposes for an abstraction. Some programmers see things in terms of use and abuse of abstractions, depending on the author's intent. As a functional programming enthusiast, I prefer to think about the discovery of abstractions rather than the design of them. Useful combinator libraries seem to arise through an iterative process of construction and deconstruction, not one-time design. Unlike collaborative essays, computers are unforgiving but patient. If two authors can't reconcile interfaces, dependencies, etc. the program or framework just won't work. It won't be a `interesting but flawed' argument. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe [1]http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com References 1. http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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