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Dijkstra: On the cruelty of really teaching computer science (1988) [pdf]

cs.utexas.edu

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Re: Dijkstra: On the cruelty of really teaching computer science (1988) [pdf]

#31

Post by JonnieCache »

GuiA wrote: post #4

This EWD is mind blowing in its beauty. It's 30 pages, but 30 pages that you won't regret reading. I love computer science and teaching it is some of the most fun I've ever had. With a lot of practice, you can get across concepts such as computability and turing machines to the non-mathematically initiated within the duration of a party, and it's greatly satisfying. (yes I am a lot of fun to be around) The rest of th…

I sometimes like to do early stage design documents with felt-tip pens or wax crayons, because it prevents you from writing fiddly details and encourages you to sketch broad structures.

I think this is more of a designer concept but you can apply it to engineering as well.

Re: Dijkstra: On the cruelty of really teaching computer science (1988) [pdf]

#33

Post by stiff »

crististm wrote: post #29
stiff wrote: post #7

I think people are attracted more to the form of the EWDs and to it's melancholic tone, rather than to the content itself, which is confirmed by the huge popularity of the EWDs as compared to "The discipline of programming", which is the technical exposition of what Dijkstra really is proposing in the EWDs. As almost all of Dijkstra's writing, this piece here is a plea for teaching formal methods. It's nicely written…

"it is also unbelievably smug and disconnected from reality." - it's funny how he addressed your objection as well

I am more than eager to see all the beautiful programs you inferred using predicate transformers and hear about your experiences doing software engineering this way in teams of size more than 1.

Re: Dijkstra: On the cruelty of really teaching computer science (1988) [pdf]

#35

Post by stiff »

ColinWright wrote: post #22

It's interesting to see how attitudes to this EWD have changed over the years. Here are some of the previous submissions with comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43978 : A few comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1666445 : Many comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3553983 : Many comments In the earlier threads there are two main voices: "Where can I learn more about this," and "It's usefu…

His proposal from this EWD was actually realized, when people trying to reduce mathematics to mathematical logic and purely formal manipulation introduced the "New Math" movement, and it was a disaster. Even mathematicians don't typically do mathematics via purely formal methods, and software engineering is much more an ... engineering discipline. In fact, his is a very mediocre philosophically voice in a debate about formalism (the stream in philosophy of mathematics) that has been ongoing for centuries, in which people like Leibniz, Turing, Poincare, Hilbert etc. participated, and from this perspective there is nothing to admire about this essay, except maybe some peculiar form of elegance of writing style.

Re: Dijkstra: On the cruelty of really teaching computer science (1988) [pdf]

#36

Post by crististm »

stiff wrote: post #33
crististm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it is also unbelievably smug and disconnected from reality." - it's funny how he addressed your objection as well

I am more than eager to see all the beautiful programs you inferred using predicate transformers and hear about your experiences doing software engineering this way in teams of size more than 1.

I don't have such programs. But I have plenty of the contrary: either zero documentation or something that's just a notch above useless. Contempt on new programmers that happen to be ignorant about their precious code and how dare they ask questions? Isn't it obvious from the hundred of lines of code that have no beginning and no end?

So, you got me here. I don't have such code, but the more I get experience the more I see that people don't care.

Re: Dijkstra: On the cruelty of really teaching computer science (1988) [pdf]

#37

Post by stiff »

stiff wrote: post #7

I think people are attracted more to the form of the EWDs and to it's melancholic tone, rather than to the content itself, which is confirmed by the huge popularity of the EWDs as compared to "The discipline of programming", which is the technical exposition of what Dijkstra really is proposing in the EWDs. As almost all of Dijkstra's writing, this piece here is a plea for teaching formal methods. It's nicely written…

Futhermore, judging by the discussion, many people here do not understand at all what Dijkstra is saying, using informal everyday interpretations for technical terms. When he says things about being "formal", it isn't just a synonym for being "systematic", or thinking harder, he means formal as in:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_methods

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_%28mathematics%29

Re: Dijkstra: On the cruelty of really teaching computer science (1988) [pdf]

#38

Post by cscurmudgeon »

stiff wrote: post #7

I think people are attracted more to the form of the EWDs and to it's melancholic tone, rather than to the content itself, which is confirmed by the huge popularity of the EWDs as compared to "The discipline of programming", which is the technical exposition of what Dijkstra really is proposing in the EWDs. As almost all of Dijkstra's writing, this piece here is a plea for teaching formal methods. It's nicely written…

> the dream of formalizing all reasoning has turned out to be a pipe-dream, as evidenced for example by the failure of the Hilbert program, and people everywhere proceed about their business as usual.

Ugh, that is unbelievably smug and disconnected from reality.

I could post tomes on why you are wrong. I will be kind and request you to respond to just this. :)

http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/1210math.html

Automated reasoners have been quite useful. You just have to stop being so smug and start looking.

Your complaining is like the physicists ("natural philosophers"?) at Newton's time complaining that natural philosophy (physics) does not need all that weird math and normal language is enough for physics.

Re: Dijkstra: On the cruelty of really teaching computer science (1988) [pdf]

#39

Post by stiff »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #38
stiff wrote: post #7

I think people are attracted more to the form of the EWDs and to it's melancholic tone, rather than to the content itself, which is confirmed by the huge popularity of the EWDs as compared to "The discipline of programming", which is the technical exposition of what Dijkstra really is proposing in the EWDs. As almost all of Dijkstra's writing, this piece here is a plea for teaching formal methods. It's nicely written…

> the dream of formalizing all reasoning has turned out to be a pipe-dream, as evidenced for example by the failure of the Hilbert program, and people everywhere proceed about their business as usual. Ugh, that is unbelievably smug and disconnected from reality. I could post tomes on why you are wrong. I will be kind and request you to respond to just this. :) http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/1210math.html A…

Do you understand the difference between "formalizing all reasoning" and just formalizing something?

Re: Dijkstra: On the cruelty of really teaching computer science (1988) [pdf]

#40

Post by the_af »

crististm wrote: post #30
ColinWright wrote: post #22

It's interesting to see how attitudes to this EWD have changed over the years. Here are some of the previous submissions with comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43978 : A few comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1666445 : Many comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3553983 : Many comments In the earlier threads there are two main voices: "Where can I learn more about this," and "It's usefu…

The audience is self-selected. The ones that don't know any better see only a condescend tone instead of the material. They don't get the difference between "lines spent" and "lines produced" and they don't know that computers were used to "compute" and thus the formalism was absolutely necessary to trust the result. What we write today is WoW and stuff we don't need formalism to prove they don't crash - because, you…

Agreed. In a way, it's like the "Blub paradox", only applied to formal methods instead of programming languages. Those who aren't familiar with them don't see the point and think it's merely "mathy" nonsense.
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