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Gettiers in software engineering (2019)

(jsomers.net)
303 points FigurativeVoid | 1 comments | 14 Oct 24 18:28 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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namuol ◴[14 Oct 24 21:24 UTC] No.41842187[source]▶
I always come back to this saying:

“Debugging is the art of figuring out which of your assumptions are wrong.”

(Attribution unknown)

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PaulDavisThe1st ◴[14 Oct 24 21:42 UTC] No.41842329[source]▶
As long as "your assumptions" includes "I know what I am doing", then OK.

But most people tend not to include that in the "your assumptions" list, and frequently it is the source of the bug.

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recursive ◴[14 Oct 24 22:31 UTC] No.41842840[source]▶
What if you never believed that in the first place?
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mannykannot ◴[15 Oct 24 02:37 UTC] No.41844394[source]▶
Then, to be consistent, you should not trust either your deductions or even your choice of axioms.

In other words, it looks like a form of solipsism.

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orbisvicis ◴[15 Oct 24 05:48 UTC] No.41845314[source]▶
You can not know what you are doing and still trust in logic.

But what world it would be if you could flip a coin on any choice and still survive! If the world didn't follow any self-consistent logic, like a Roger Zelazny novel, that would be fantastic. Not sure that qualifies as solipsism, but still. Would society even be possible? Or even life?

Here, as long as you follow cultural norms, every choice has pretty good outcomes.

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1. mannykannot ◴[15 Oct 24 12:38 UTC] No.41847940{3}[source]▶
Logic will only tell you what follows from your choice of axioms, not how to choose them, and only if you can trust your ability to apply it correctly. Absent that, your only option appears to be to put your trust in other people - which is, I suppose, what you are saying in your final paragraph.