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Logical fallacies in software engineering

artur-martsinkovskyi.github.io

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Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#101

Post by thethirdone »

austincheney wrote: post #100
chadash wrote: post #34

> Appeal to authority (argument from authority, argumentum ad verecundiam) – an assertion is deemed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it. You have to be careful with this one. When someone has enough credibility, sometimes you need to question yourself if you disagree. If you are playing chess and Gary Kasparov comes along and tells you what your next move should be, you can disagree w…

No. Absolutely not. If the person is actually an incredible authority they will have no trouble making a compelling argument or providing strong evidence. This is never confusing unless you lack objectivity.

> If the person is actually an incredible authority they will have no trouble making a compelling argument or providing strong evidence.

This is false in many contexts.

For example with Chess, a super GM may tell you your move is bad because they have calculated a ton of possible continuations from your move and you end up in a losing endgame. If you can't follow their calculations and/or don't know enough endgame theory, you won't be able to tell if what they are saying is correct.

Similarly with say cryptography. If you don't understand enough about the field and state of the art. You may not be able to understand how some encryption might be able to be broken.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#102

Post by chadash »

vincnetas wrote: post #99
chadash wrote: post #34

> Appeal to authority (argument from authority, argumentum ad verecundiam) – an assertion is deemed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it. You have to be careful with this one. When someone has enough credibility, sometimes you need to question yourself if you disagree. If you are playing chess and Gary Kasparov comes along and tells you what your next move should be, you can disagree w…

it depends greatly how Kasparov tells you what to do. if it's "do this because I'm kasparov", or "do this, because your next move could be this and it gives you this opportunity". same with software. someone telling to do this because I'm senior engineer is appeal to authority.

If I were playing chess in the park and Gary Kasporov walks by, sees a move that I'm about to make and says "that's a mistake, I'd recommend against that", then I'd be an idiot not to strongly reconsider my move, whether he explains himself or not. Sure, he makes mistakes, but Kasparov is an unimaginably better at chess than me and the chances that I make a mistake and don't see something that he does are much much greater. With chess though, it's hard to overate yourself because you can see exactly where you stand. With software engineering though, it's very easy to overestimate your abilities.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#103

Post by austincheney »

argd678 wrote: post #51

> Some engineers may use such fallacy, exposing all the technicalities of their job to cover incompetence and justify failure in rolling out feature in time. This is certainly common, however I see more often that engineers are simply not convinced by logically sound arguments that are in fact correct and true, so you’re forced to use other methods such as authority since they’re not operating completely on reason. D…

What you described is called cognitive conservatism, which is a common defense of Dunning-Kruger rockstars.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#104

Post by marcosdumay »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #74
austincheney wrote: post #9

Many logical fallacies I encounter as a developer are actively exercised so that a developer can save face or justify their existence through appeals to the ignorance of business leaders. Some I have noticed as a JavaScript developer: * Appeal to Popularity, a modification of appeal to authority. Essentially this says if a tool or approach is popular it is correct. The common assertion is that popular approaches must…

Student fallacy is also called Baby Duck fallacy, because you imprint on the first thing you see. To this day I have no idea whether Git actually sucks or I just saw Mercurial first.

Git sucks on many different ways. It's also great (much better than Hg) on many other ways.

So, you'll see people fully convinced that each one is superior, and both are justified.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#105

Post by JadeNB »

chadash wrote: post #34

> Appeal to authority (argument from authority, argumentum ad verecundiam) – an assertion is deemed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it. You have to be careful with this one. When someone has enough credibility, sometimes you need to question yourself if you disagree. If you are playing chess and Gary Kasparov comes along and tells you what your next move should be, you can disagree w…

> > Appeal to authority (argument from authority, argumentum ad verecundiam) – an assertion is deemed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it.

> You have to be careful with this one. When someone has enough credibility, sometimes you need to question yourself if you disagree.

This is true in all disciplines, and yet the fallacy exists—because there's a difference between "an assertion is deemed true because of the … person asserting it" (emphasis mine; a fallacy) versus "an assertion is given more weight because of the person asserting it" (a perfectly reasonable shortcut, as long as the assertion is still given some vetting).

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#106

Post by chadash »

austincheney wrote: post #100
chadash wrote: post #34

> Appeal to authority (argument from authority, argumentum ad verecundiam) – an assertion is deemed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it. You have to be careful with this one. When someone has enough credibility, sometimes you need to question yourself if you disagree. If you are playing chess and Gary Kasparov comes along and tells you what your next move should be, you can disagree w…

No. Absolutely not. If the person is actually an incredible authority they will have no trouble making a compelling argument or providing strong evidence. This is never confusing unless you lack objectivity.

If this were true, then developers would have no problem selling things like unit testing or reduction of technical debt to business folk. Sometimes it's hard to explain something to someone who isn't on your level with a specific skill.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#107

Post by austincheney »

thethirdone wrote: post #101
austincheney wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Absolutely not. If the person is actually an incredible authority they will have no trouble making a compelling argument or providing strong evidence. This is never confusing unless you lack objectivity.

> If the person is actually an incredible authority they will have no trouble making a compelling argument or providing strong evidence. This is false in many contexts. For example with Chess, a super GM may tell you your move is bad because they have calculated a ton of possible continuations from your move and you end up in a losing endgame. If you can't follow their calculations and/or don't know enough endgame th…

That is called bias. Again, this matter is simple when objective. People often give into appeals of authority and other fallacies because they lack the critical nature to make original decisions and instead defer to name recognition.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#108

Post by austincheney »

chadash wrote: post #106
austincheney wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Absolutely not. If the person is actually an incredible authority they will have no trouble making a compelling argument or providing strong evidence. This is never confusing unless you lack objectivity.

If this were true, then developers would have no problem selling things like unit testing or reduction of technical debt to business folk. Sometimes it's hard to explain something to someone who isn't on your level with a specific skill.

If you lack the ability to craft a persuasive argument then provide strong evidence. To an objective outsider giving into logical fallacies would make your argument weaker, not stronger.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#109

Post by arwhatever »

stupidcar wrote: post #7

The "nirvana fallacy" is definitely one I commonly see on Hacker News. The ease with which people jump from "thing x is imperfect" to "thing x is worthless" is mind-boggling. This is usually coupled with familiarity bias, where the flaws of any existing technology are discounted vs. those of a new technology.

I'm CONSTANTLY lamenting this exact tendency https://twitter.com/ardave2002/status/1128827634375249920 and now if you don't mind, I'm going to tweet-quote the way you've presented it here.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#110

Post by tauwauwau »

wpasc wrote: post #45
shados wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good points. I feel software engineering as a field is growing a lot slower than it could, for a couple of reason. The first is what you mention: everyone ignores lessons from the past and try to relearn everything from scratch, reinventing the wheel and best practices over and over and over, making the same mistakes again and again. Some communities also heavily encourages concepts like how experience doesn't matter…

May I add to this with a third: difficulty in creating a strong system of mentoring? Many companies have a formal mentorship program but it is often in name only (at least in my experience at 3 companies). In a formalized apprentice program, a worker can feel okay about not knowing things and asking the person for whom they are apprenticing. Despite formal mentors, I believe many junior devs do not have a person that…

In my experience people with great knowledge generally have an urge to pass it on and they appreciate self initiative taken by the person learning. I have mentored a few people during my job and generally feel that my time was wasted only if they don't take initiative to learn themselves. Many a times I leave a crucial thing out of the answer and ask them to try to find for themselves as teaching is not about giving a ride but showing the way.

During the years I have found that it's not helpful to go into too much detail when teaching, as the people who are just starting won't be able to appreciate it and it may actually overwhelm them.

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