We have control over the amount of real reasoning we can do about our code. The hassle of the real can be minimized. For example, I like clojure, and there are real benefits to theoretical things like immutability by default, or garbage collection. This ability to reason mathematically while being practical is worth promoting in computer science and engineering. If I couldn't reason this way about programming, I wouldn't be a programmer. Engineering is the intersection from theory to practice, and I appreciate that in computing, incidental complexity can usually be traced back to someone's neglect. Without this, we only have heuristics.
There is no silver bullet, but things can be made measurably better. We can accept reality without giving up on reason. I think to prove it, we can look at the influence of mathematics on real discoveries in history, and maybe ponder if humans are just meant to think this way in order to make progress. I hope my code reflects more order (purity, generality, conciseness) than chaos (special cases, entropy, technical debt).
I would just call the procs thing a 'wart' and avoid using it. I don't think my opinion favors the mathematically inclined programmers over the empiricists.
So, let's think about the kinds of things that get done as a consequence of certain types of thinking.
We have control over the amount of real reasoning we can do about our code. The hassle of the real can be minimized. For example, I like clojure, and there are real benefits to theoretical things like immutability by default, or garbage collection. This ability to reason mathematically while being practical is worth promoting in computer science and engineering. If I couldn't reason this way about programming, I wouldn't be a programmer. Engineering is the intersection from theory to practice, and I appreciate that in computing, incidental complexity can usually be traced back to someone's neglect. Without this, we only have heuristics.
There is no silver bullet, but things can be made measurably better. We can accept reality without giving up on reason. I think to prove it, we can look at the influence of mathematics on real discoveries in history, and maybe ponder if humans are just meant to think this way in order to make progress. I hope my code reflects more order (purity, generality, conciseness) than chaos (special cases, entropy, technical debt).
I would just call the procs thing a 'wart' and avoid using it. I don't think my opinion favors the mathematically inclined programmers over the empiricists.
So, let's think about the kinds of things that get done as a consequence of certain types of thinking.
Tradeoffs.