Somewhat off-topic: What does the Chief Philosopher of a software company do? And how do I get that job?
The Principals of 'Pataphysical Programming
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Re: The Principals of 'Pataphysical Programming
#12The article doesn't get very concrete, and given the origins of "'pataphysics" as parody I'm not sure how seriously to take this. On the other hand, treating software systems as realities in their own right – with only incidental mappings back to our reality – is a fascinating idea. (Obviously an entirely self-contained reality is no good; I/O are pretty fundamental.) I guess the question is, what happens when we sto…
Based on the prose examples the article gives (the chess/lunch story and the crucifixion/bike race story), it looks like a truly 'pataphysical system wouldn't need IO at all. Instead, you'd have a program of some sort, that was simultaneously doing 'pataphysical computation and mundane computation. In the story of Jesus and the bike race, the narrative never shifts between the story of racing up the hill and the stor…
A "pataphysical program" would be an object diagram which took on a life of its own, loosing all touch with possible implementations, with considerable documentation, a CVS tree, a length license agreement, etc...
Re: The Principals of 'Pataphysical Programming
#13I'm running into Poe's Law here: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poes_Law
Re: The Principals of 'Pataphysical Programming
#14The article doesn't get very concrete, and given the origins of "'pataphysics" as parody I'm not sure how seriously to take this. On the other hand, treating software systems as realities in their own right – with only incidental mappings back to our reality – is a fascinating idea. (Obviously an entirely self-contained reality is no good; I/O are pretty fundamental.) I guess the question is, what happens when we sto…
Based on the prose examples the article gives (the chess/lunch story and the crucifixion/bike race story), it looks like a truly 'pataphysical system wouldn't need IO at all. Instead, you'd have a program of some sort, that was simultaneously doing 'pataphysical computation and mundane computation. In the story of Jesus and the bike race, the narrative never shifts between the story of racing up the hill and the stor…
I did have the thought that if OO is clearly metaphorical, it could be argued that all abstractions within the program are 'pataphysical. That is, we can say "an agent sends a message to another agent" or "the function passes control to the current continuation", and we're actually describing concrete reality in program-land, rather than metaphors for real-world objects.
In that sense, 'pataphysical programming might be more common than we realize.
Re: The Principals of 'Pataphysical Programming
#15Somewhat off-topic: What does the Chief Philosopher of a software company do? And how do I get that job?
If you start your own company, you can give yourself any title you like.
edit: That doesn't mean people will refer to you as such, or respect you, but that's a different issue altogether.
On topic, a Chief Philosopher probably would serve a role between product manager and evangelist.