You keep talking about “optimal,” but algorithms and data are only good for optimizing, not for defining what you mean by “optimal” in the first place. Logic and engineering can achieve goals, but they can’t help you choose what goals to achieve.
The real world is big and incomprehensible, and we all have to choose optimization goals based on what limited understanding we have of the big picture - also known as the “system.” There is no math formula you’ll ever be able to find that can do that for you.
Optimizing a known goal, that’s the straightforward kind of engineering, the kind I said in the article maxes out at Senior Engineer. Figuring out what goal to optimize for is messy and uncomfortable, but it’s the only way to eventually solve the bigger problems of the world.
When I was in grade school, math was my favourite subject, because the answers were always right or wrong and you never had to worry if the teacher would disagree with you. It was comforting. It still is. But to grow up and have a bigger impact, we have to move on and learn about uncomfortable things too.
I can tell this bothers you a lot. It used to bother me a lot too. The reason I write articles like this is to explain the things I used to not understand, using words that I hope would have helped past-me understand sooner. Maybe it will help you too. If not, no harm done.
> I can tell this bothers you a lot. It used to bother me a lot too. The reason I write articles like this is to explain the things I used to not understand, using words that I hope would have helped past-me understand sooner. Maybe it will help you too. If not, no harm done.
Thanks for writing this. I too can relate because these things used to bother me too. I like your math being the favorite subject anecdote because it's one I can relate to, and coaching colleagues and reports past the fear of looking like or even admitting that they're wrong has been a much more significant part of my career than I probably ever would have expected. The funny thing is that if you had told me that at the part of my career where it bothered me, I would have not listened. I had to stumble through it to realize everyone (including people like you) who warned me about this was right. I almost wonder if it's a rite of passage for engineers.
Do you still have trouble admitting you're wrong? Your last post to me was a complete troll and the moderator killed your post because of how vile and rude it was. Do you resort to insults when you can't admit your wrong? You certainly did to me.
> I almost wonder if it's a rite of passage for engineers.
Its flawed to think of the world as a reflection of yourself. It's definitely not a rite of passage for engineers. This is more of a rite of passage for you and your fear of being wrong.
Math to me was the same as any other subject. I never had an issue with being wrong or right. If anything english was my best subject. My math skills developed later in university. I have a greater talent for formal math then I do for the applied math they they teach in highschool. But this has nothing to do with any fear of being wrong. I like formal math because I find the philosophical implications of the subject interesting. I derive no other comfort from it and definitely can't relate to your or the parent posters ability to derive comfort from the exactness of the answers. It's just puzzles and solutions I can't derive "comfort" from that anymore then I can derive comfort from a rock.
I think both you and the author of this original article are making misplaced judgements on character. Don't assume that others think like you have the same qualities as you or have the same weaknesses as you. Everytime you make this assumption you're actually revealing more about yourself to others.
Your last post to me. The one that got killed by the moderator was strange. I was sort of curious where all that made up stuff came from. Then I realized none of it was made up. It's just a reflection of your own horrible life. For that I'm truly sorry and I hope you can find a way out of your miserable circumstances.
This is my point. The path to formalization is finding the exact formal definition of the notion of what we intuitively understand as "good software design patterns." For algorithm speed, we use Big Oh, for other aspects of design, I'm saying rather then create more software design metaphors a more productive use of our time is to formalize and converge on an optimum.
>The real world is big and incomprehensible, and we all have to choose optimization goals based on what limited understanding we have of the big picture - also known as the “system.” There is no math formula you’ll ever be able to find that can do that for you.
Yes except the computer system is an idealization of the the real world. It places the real world into a logical world of formalisms where we can eschew science and use pure logic to draw conclusions.
>Figuring out what goal to optimize for is messy and uncomfortable
Sure. But clearly that task is separate from design patterns. 1. The business "designs" an objective and a goal. 2. The software engineer meets that goal. I am talking about 2. not 1.
>When I was in grade school, math was my favourite subject, because the answers were always right or wrong and you never had to worry if the teacher would disagree with you. It was comforting. It still is. But to grow up and have a bigger impact, we have to move on and learn about uncomfortable things too.
I fail to see how discomfort or growing up have anything to do with the topic at hand. The goal is to converge on the most correct and definitive answer possible.
>I can tell this bothers you a lot. It used to bother me a lot too. The reason I write articles like this is to explain the things I used to not understand, using words that I hope would have helped past-me understand sooner. Maybe it will help you too. If not, no harm done.
It doesn't bother me at all. It sounds like some sort of anxiety disorder if the fuzziness of certain answers bothered you. Human brains are neural nets more similar to the probabilistic (aka fuzzy) outputs produced by our machine learning models hence most people should be more comfortable with fuzzy answers rather then pure logic. Either way, I am simply arguing a point. Your empathy is appreciated but unaccepted, this is not the goal. Again, the goal is to debate a point and find a correct answer.
Well I'm not here to talk about my character. I'm only interested in my point. If you want to talk about me, well I can only tell you I'm not interested and neither is anyone else reading this thread. It's sort of against the spirit here on HN.
The real world is big and incomprehensible, and we all have to choose optimization goals based on what limited understanding we have of the big picture - also known as the “system.” There is no math formula you’ll ever be able to find that can do that for you.
Optimizing a known goal, that’s the straightforward kind of engineering, the kind I said in the article maxes out at Senior Engineer. Figuring out what goal to optimize for is messy and uncomfortable, but it’s the only way to eventually solve the bigger problems of the world.
When I was in grade school, math was my favourite subject, because the answers were always right or wrong and you never had to worry if the teacher would disagree with you. It was comforting. It still is. But to grow up and have a bigger impact, we have to move on and learn about uncomfortable things too.
I can tell this bothers you a lot. It used to bother me a lot too. The reason I write articles like this is to explain the things I used to not understand, using words that I hope would have helped past-me understand sooner. Maybe it will help you too. If not, no harm done.