Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders

Re:Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on... by galaxyLogic on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:14PM (#24945783)

That is good stuff (well he was Dijkstra). I think we've all seen such hubris play out. When you want to prove that you are intellectually superior you will demonstrate that you can master the most difficult tools (say category theory?) without understanding that your real goal should be to find simple solutions to difficult problems.

A simple solution does not look like much because it is so simple, but it can take a genius to come up with it. Whereas complicated solutions are easier to come by and do demonstrate your intellectual skills.

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Re:Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on... by User23 on Saturday October 31, 2020 @12:41AM (#24949187)

Bear in mind though that spending hours upon hours to find a simple solution to a hard problem will tank your professional career. Why? Because your manager will look at your simple solution that you took such pains to derive and then ask why it took you so long to produce such a small amount of such obvious code.

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Re:Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on... by galaxyLogic on Saturday October 31, 2020 @03:46AM (#24949765)

That is the case no doubt in most organizations. And I can see their point if it works it works even if it may be very difficult to maintain it. But that should be a conscious decision, not a point of pride how complicated the code is to understand.

Just because a person can write code that only they can understand does not mean they are more intelligent than others, nor that the quality of such code would be "good". :-)

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Re:Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on... by edejong on Saturday October 31, 2020 @06:22AM (#24950253)

Although I’ve seen numerous examples of hubris by creating accidental complexity, I actually think category theory is an exercise in minimalism. But the realization only happens when understanding the complexity of ‘normal’ imperative and object oriented programming.

The problem with category theory, as I see it, happens due to a mismatch with our mode of creating. We tend to converge in our solutions from chaos to order. Formal systems don’t provide space to be chaotic in. We need to be right the first time.

We need languages and IDEs that will help us find abstractions. Static analysis saying: “this thing here is like all those other things if only you see it like so. Perhaps you want to structure it like those other things as well?”

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