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Quote of the Day

If you enjoy programming, philosophy, math, or any number of geeky topics, you're in the right place. Every day, I'll post a random quote from my extensive collection of Kindle highlights. Quotes do not necessarily reflect my views or opinions. In fact, part of my epistemic process is to consume a wide variety of contradictory material.

11/25/2021

…starting with history discourages the common and distracting tendency we all have to define a problem not by the system’s actual behavior, but by the lack of our favorite solution.

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems

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11/23/2021

Complexity manifests itself in three general ways… Change amplification: The first symptom of complexity is that a seemingly simple change requires code modifications in many different places…Cognitive load: The second symptom of complexity is cognitive load, which refers to how much a developer needs to know in order to complete a task…Unknown unknowns: The third symptom of complexity is that it is not obvious which pieces of code must be modified to complete a task, or what information a developer must have to carry out the task successfully.

— John Ousterhout, A Philosophy of Software Design

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11/22/2021

The Romantic philosophers were not interested in taking the universe apart like a machine, in analyzing it into its smallest atoms. No, they wanted to contemplate, understand, interpret, feel and see through the world to its hidden meaning, like you do with a poem or painting.

— Bo Dalhbom and Lars Mathiassen, Struggling with Quality, The Philosophy of Developing Computer Systems

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11/21/2021

The point of calling attention to progress is not self-congratulation but identifying the causes so we can do more of what works. And since we know that something has worked, it’s unnecessary to keep depicting the developing world as a basket case to shake people out of their apathy—with the danger that they will think that additional support would just be throwing money down a rat hole.

— Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now

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