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Perlisisms (1982)

cs.yale.edu

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Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#31

Post by skydhash »

kbenson wrote: post #18
hbcdbff wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree - like many of the quotes on this page, it seems interesting at a very superficial level but upon further inspection turns out to be nonsensical. If something requires attention, it’s by definition relevant

But relevant to what? Some things are relevant directly to the outcome by nature of what you're trying to express, while some other things are essentially incantations you need to repeat the same every time. Bad build systems and what you have to do to make them work are definitely relevant towards building a working program when you're using them, but at the same time the specific details are often somewhat irreleva…

Relevant to the problem you’re trying to solve. If it’s only relevant to what you’re using for solving it (i.e. choosing a different tool would have make those issues disappear), then that make them irrelevant.

Each tooling set will bring its own irrelevant details. But you can rank them according to the amount and complexity of the irrelevant of details you have to think about.

Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#34

Post by wbl »

gwerbin wrote: post #19
addaon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If something requires attention, it’s by definition relevant" Not really. Consider an assembly language for a processor with a very orthogonal register set. The number of registers used by a block of code is relevant, but the identity of those registers isn't. That is, if the code can be written without spilling with six distinct, uniform registers, the choice of one of the 6! possible assignments of those six regis…

And if I'm writing a script to query the Google Maps API then I really don't want to have to think about registers at all. Maybe "high-level"" low level" should be understood in terms relative to the task and its goals.

Exactly!

Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#35

Post by skydhash »

dtagames wrote: post #13
hugo0vaz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood what the phrase actually means. You can only successfully manage or outsource a process once you understand it well enough to explain it. Therefore, most of the people doing agentic engineering are not following this Perlisim.

Oh, that's exactly what I meant, except its corollary. People who do understand how software works should absolutely be having agents code it. And we do.

> People who do understand how software works should absolutely be having agents code it.

I don’t think there’s such people.

Either you’re writing a software for the first time and so the premise is not true. Or you’re writing it a second time and what would be the point? Just reuse the code you already have.

Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#36

Post by dtagames »

skydhash wrote: post #35
dtagames wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, that's exactly what I meant, except its corollary. People who do understand how software works should absolutely be having agents code it. And we do.

> People who do understand how software works should absolutely be having agents code it. I don’t think there’s such people. Either you’re writing a software for the first time and so the premise is not true. Or you’re writing it a second time and what would be the point? Just reuse the code you already have.

There are lots of people who understand how software works, including the fact that every line of code is new or else you wouldn't need to write it.

Personally, I love "philosophy of software" questions like these, especially in the AI era. I write quite a bit about this on Medium:

https://medium.com/@mimixco

Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#37

Post by Sharlin »

ripe wrote: post #20

> 102. One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means. Seems to be a strike against LLM-based programming systems like Claude.

To be fair, I don't think anyone is claiming that the process is anywhere close to formal. The word "vibe" implies anything except formality.

What Perlis probably meant that formal methods are useless unless you already have a formal specification. The formalization process itself is by necessity informal.

Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#40

Post by movpasd »

munificent wrote: post #22
hbcdbff wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree - like many of the quotes on this page, it seems interesting at a very superficial level but upon further inspection turns out to be nonsensical. If something requires attention, it’s by definition relevant

If you want to go out of your way to interpret things as uncharitably as possible, you'll find yourself missing out on a lot of potential wisdom. Obviously, it's relevant if the language itself forces the user to worry about some pointless minutia. The problem is that the language created that relevance, when it is otherwise irrelevant to the problem the user is trying to solve . Forward declarations are relevant in…

> If you want to go out of your way to interpret things as uncharitably as possible, you'll find yourself missing out on a lot of potential wisdom.

Thank you for that line --- I may steal it :)

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