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We are not special. Programming isn't a special kind of labor. Software isn't a special kind of profession. To think otherwise is to lack experience with other disciplines. Which is fine, we have to specialize. But we so easily fool ourselves into ignoring our ignorance.

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Nicholas Schiefer

@nschiefer

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@hillelogram

I've spent about equal amounts of time working on software and "theorem-proof" math. I'm often puzzled when a math person insists that they couldn't learn to program, or vice versa. IMO they're *very* similar activities that just happen to have different cultural traditions.

3:08 AM · Aug 13, 2021Twitter Web App

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and

I've asked acquaintances who are studying law about the challenges that they face and they're *so* similar to the challenges that I've seen working on messy legacy software stacks, down to the "well, the person who understood this retired and now we're kinda screwed."

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and

Curry and Howard would like a word with you

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and

Naturally 😉 It's amazing that this ends up actually mattering to the point that programming and proving theorems feels so similar as activities. Like, brainfuck is Turing complete but programming in it doesn't feel similar to programming in, uh, any reasonable language.