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1. Nate Cull (natecull@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 03-Dec-2017 20:13:45 EST Nate Cull

   It's a bit like, um, trying to do chemistry where you can't use molecules, you have to use much larger, impure, collections of stuff.

   The core 'laws' of your system are small, consistent and complete. But you can't access that small core. You have to use 'horse urine' rather than 'nitric acid' sort of thing. And from what size of horse? etc

   This makes programming more like medieval alchemy than industrial chemistry.

   1. ❄️🦊 (icefox@octodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 03-Dec-2017 20:19:48 EST ❄️🦊

      in reply to

      @natecull part of the problem is that mathematics is pure but the machines that implement them are impure

      Part of the problem is humans just suck at building systems

      Part of the problem is we still don't understand the details

      Programming is currently like engineering in the 1850s, when the laws were empirical, there were lots of colliding locomotives and collapsing bridges, and every machine shop made it's own, incompatible nuts and bolts.