Closing Keynote with Leslie Lamport at Scale 22x: Coding Isn't Programming

Re:Closing Keynote with Leslie Lamport at Scale 22x: Coding ... by torstenvl on Thursday March 27, 2025 @12:30PM (#43495282)

But it isn't true that "cows are valued by the amount of milk they produce" any more than "men are valued by the amount of code they produce." It's a false statement and a category error.

In fact, many cows are not used for milk at all. Some breeds make for great dairy; some breeds make for great beef; but few are great for both... Dexter cattle maybe.

(Nobody's out here clamoring for Black Angus cheese and absolutely nobody likes Jersey steak. While a Jersey cow or Holstein cow may be valued in part by the milk they produce, a Japanese Shorthorn or Belgian Blue cow is valued by the muscle tissue she produces and the genes that cause her offspring to produce similar muscle tissue.)

Your comparison is a category error. The trait "is valued for milk production" does not pertain to the superclass of "cows" but only to the subclass of "milchers."

"Coder" : code :: "milcher" : milk.

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Re:Closing Keynote with Leslie Lamport at Scale 22x: Coding ... by netdevphoenix on Monday March 31, 2025 @04:29AM (#43532579)

Thanks for the clarification there, but you are going on a tangent there. Point is that people are being valued based on metrics that make no sense.

Pointing that my specific example has some error does not detract from the main point and diving into the specifics of cow breeds or whether all cows are used for milk or not is irrelevant imo. The cow-milk analogy was just an example that could be replaced for any other.

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