Re:Green Lumber Fallacy in Software Engineering
by bryanrasmussen on Friday January 14, 2022 @05:34AM
(#29932787)
>this is the "i'll quit smoking when i get cancer" philosophy applied to software dev.
This may probably be the worst logical analogy I've ever read on HN.
The suggestion is that when you need an algorithm (cancer) you will look it up (quit smoking); the initial problems that make the analogy rather clunky - the algorithm is something you want whereas cancer is something you don't, and looking up the algorithm is something you start to do whereas quitting smoking is something you stop (smoking)
But of course there are other things that make the analogy inelegant - the longer you smoke the worse the cancer gets, but not looking up the algorithm for years does not make the algorithm any harder (here there is some room to quibble since unfamiliarity with the algorithm for some years may make implementing it more difficult but that is a different level of surety than the smoking worsens cancer level of surety, and at any rate difficulty to implement is not exactly the same as harder)
Finally the extreme nature of the analogy seems more likely to cloud judgement than otherwise.
I'm not saying you're not good at what you do, just saying you are not getting a job in this philosophy department with that level of argumentation buster!
This may probably be the worst logical analogy I've ever read on HN.
The suggestion is that when you need an algorithm (cancer) you will look it up (quit smoking); the initial problems that make the analogy rather clunky - the algorithm is something you want whereas cancer is something you don't, and looking up the algorithm is something you start to do whereas quitting smoking is something you stop (smoking)
But of course there are other things that make the analogy inelegant - the longer you smoke the worse the cancer gets, but not looking up the algorithm for years does not make the algorithm any harder (here there is some room to quibble since unfamiliarity with the algorithm for some years may make implementing it more difficult but that is a different level of surety than the smoking worsens cancer level of surety, and at any rate difficulty to implement is not exactly the same as harder)
Finally the extreme nature of the analogy seems more likely to cloud judgement than otherwise.
I'm not saying you're not good at what you do, just saying you are not getting a job in this philosophy department with that level of argumentation buster!