I also saw this (Naur's piece) linked to in that thread; thank you for submitting it, and it's rather a shame it didn't get many upvotes. It is definitely front-page worthy. I just sat down to read it, tonight.
And wow, what a treat it was. I thought I knew what is argument was going to be (that theory building is the primary task of programmers) — but the plot twist I did not see coming was the argument that it is inherently a part of the programmer's mind, and cannot be separated from the mind! And wow, was it well argued. Went in for a lesson in engineering, and got schooled in philosophy too.
Notes:
My first encounter with this paper came from this thread:
"programmers spend most of their time trying to figure out and understand the system"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30860135
There are numerous interesting observations from other readers.
One of my favorites is:
mikewarot writes
> The main value of a software company is the mapping of source code and problem space in the developer’s heads [In linked article]</i>
The linked article is pretty good https://hiringengineersbook.com/post/autonomy/
I also saw this (Naur's piece) linked to in that thread; thank you for submitting it, and it's rather a shame it didn't get many upvotes. It is definitely front-page worthy. I just sat down to read it, tonight.
And wow, what a treat it was. I thought I knew what is argument was going to be (that theory building is the primary task of programmers) — but the plot twist I did not see coming was the argument that it is inherently a part of the programmer's mind, and cannot be separated from the mind! And wow, was it well argued. Went in for a lesson in engineering, and got schooled in philosophy too.