[rhn_mk1]

> There is one thing that developers like more than building things — and that is breaking things built by other people.

Haha. This is not as universal as the author thinks. Every time I need to reverse-engineer something obscured on purpose, I wish we could just get along.

Every time I have to reverse-engineer something obscured by accident, I call it debugging.

But even if I solve the puzzle, it's like solving crosswords: I just defeated a human mind, the victory is transient, and will soon be forgotten. I'd prefer my victories to be against the frontier of knowledge, and to win universal truths. That means building things rather than tearing down those humans built.

I just wish there was more mathematical certainty and less human vices in programming.

[pixl97]

Unfortunately the halting problem takes all your mathematical certainty and throws it out the window. It's very easy to take your application which will halt within a finite amount of time to one that will not. You'll find most programmers and companies are not going to spend the massive amount of time to ensure their logic is correct, but instead throw the application out there quickly and fix it based on crashes and feedback.

[rhn_mk1]

Mathematical certainty is what to leverage, not what to fight. You'd use it before you run into the halting prbblem, not after. Just like mathematics was used to discover the halting problem in the first place.

And what you're describing as happening in practice is precisely the disappointing part of prgramming.

[nocsi]

Yea the fix it later approach is an excuse that software engineers get to enjoy. Civil engineers are liable for their mistakes, and face fines/sanctions for their work. Meanwhile, software engineers can get away with half ass logic or mishandling of data and nothing comes of it.

In South Korea, a company with known software vulnerabilities is fined everyday until they fix it. Gives incentive to making sure software does the right thing before it gets shipped.

[philipphutterer]

> I'd prefer my victories to be against the frontier of knowledge, and to win universal truths.

You wouldn't need to tear down barriers if the people that built them thought the same in the first place. Nonetheless, keep up that attitude.