I'd say his utterances did not — Terrapin Station

And yet (some of) those to whom those utterances were directed did kill people, or have them killed. Was that coincidence? :chin:

"I gave up believing in that which is impossible, illogical, and for which there is no evidence when I was a child." — Artemis

How sad. Even as a child, when your imagination and creative-learning ability was at its peak? What a shame. :fear:

By itself, no. But as itself, certainly. — tim wood

And yet the topic title clearly says "by itself". :chin:

Law is a repressive apparatus. In spite of its best intentions, its function is to enact a form of repression. — thewonder

Yes, repression ... but also protection. One shows concern for you, the other doesn't seem to. And law does both at the same time. So it has good points and bad ones too. Not really a surprise. :wink: [And no argument that I can see for law being only non-good. :wink: ]

That sounds like a pretty hateful bit of speech at the end (when you tell me to go fuck myself) you clueless douche, better be careful lest someone read that and be causally forced to commit violence.
What a joke. — DingoJones

A poor joke, I suggest. Your wish to demean the 'snowflakes' has lead you to write nonsense. The provocation in your words is aimed specifically at @god must be atheist. There is no reason at all why anyone else should be affected by them.

Oh, and "causally forced violence" is a deliberate distortion on your part, I think, to further demean the argument you despise. Too much emotion, I think, and too little philosophy. IMO, of course.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. You don't specifically target hate speech, but the meaning is there: some societies approve of it, some disapprove, so you just have to roll with the flow. This is true. In our society hate speech is disallowed, and that's that, you say, as "that's that" applies to all rules of any society. — god must be atheist

Now I'm going to contradict myself, just a little. For although societies do as they wish, their 'minds' can be changed by their component 'cells' (us). In my country, we are considering changing our law on cannabis, but we haven't got there yet. So our laws remain severe and in place. But if enough of us become convinced, our society (which is ourselves, considered and acting collectively) will change. ... But only when it wants to, and on its own terms! :up:

I think perhaps in the next few decades, programmers will put themselves out of a job by developing an artificial intelligence that can do their jobs. — darthbarracuda

I see from your post that you're a relatively recent recruit to our ranks, as you mention web development, and starting with Agile. Nevertheless, you seem to have developed quite an eye for our industry! :wink: As to AIs replacing us, I've read the same thing twice a year since I started, in the (very) late 70s. I don't think our replacement is likely, because of the strong and central core of creativity in our work. We are not artists like Emin or Monet, but we could not do our jobs without the creativity that gets us from a whole host of requirements (from the customer; technical requirements from the engineering side; commercial requirements from the managerial side; and so on) to a solution acceptable to all.

the philosophically enlightening thing about the craft of software engineering is its cut-throat pragmatism... — sime

...unexpectedly coupled with its need to satisfy human-based desires (requirements), which move well away from "pragmatism". Many of them are only distantly connected to logic or reason; ask any working software designer! :smile:

The reason agile became a thing is because often it's the case that during a software project the requirements change as the customer comes to realize what they really want which they were unable to specify at the outset. — Marchesk

It is the very notion of "project" with "start" date, "delivery" date, and definitive "budget" that is the problem. The larger the distance between what you want to achieve versus what you can download verbatim from github, the more costly the failure will be. — alcontali

[C]omputer programs have a different kind of complexity, in that the problem really isnt the complexity of the problem to be solved, but in the communications. What is it we want done, how shall the different persons realizing the programming project work together, how shall the programming parts communicate with each other, how can we use already delivered program code. — Ansiktsburk

It's a joy to see posts based on real knowledge and understanding! @Ansiktsburk, aren't you wandering around the word "design" in what you wrote? :wink: To successfully design a program (or anything else, come to that), we need to understand all the contributing forces, as @Ansiktsburk describes. The need for understanding is paramount. This being the case, I wonder what the role of the philosophy of SE is?

Philosophy most often tries to lead us in the direction of understanding. In other areas, say X, the philosophy of X is an investigation into background issues, those that are rarely scrutinised. But in SE, understanding of roughly that sort is necessary for its practitioners. So where is the space for the philosophy of SE? I'm not sure. But I'm sure someone here will offer suggestions? :wink:

Societies set their own laws, but those laws can still be right or wrong — NOS4A2

And yet right and wrong are relative to who they refer to. What's right for me, a tuberculosis bacterium, is wrong for you, a human with damaged lungs. Societies set their own laws, and they are always 'right' by definition. Societies do not set laws that are wrong for them. In time, they may amend their laws, if it proves that they are not optimal for their purpose(s).

Societies are like nature in the proverb: red in tooth and claw. They don't play well with others. They do what they want without regard to others. And they're too big to argue with, so we don't. Societies are sociopaths. :chin: :gasp:

...if we reduced all moral arguments to nothing but numbers, nothing but raw measurements that are completely independent from any subjective interpretation of these arguments... — Marzipanmaddox

I'm not sure that's possible. Because I'm not sure that moral arguments have components that are capable of being reduced to numbers and/or raw measurements. Moral arguments comprise complex, interconnected, abstract concepts; these do not easily reduce in the way you suggest. :chin:

Why should the variety spoken in the original home of the language be regarded as primary, in a world in which English is a native language in other places? — jamalrob

The original strain is primary because ... it's the original strain, and it's primary. English is the language of the English. English is a "native language" in very few places, these days. American is the language that is so widely spoken throughout the Western world.

After all, English has mutated in England too. — jamalrob

English continues to develop and grow, in England, its home. :wink: :up:

Although the only way such laws change is via people in the society in question not agreeing with them. — Terrapin Station

Yep.

For instance slavery was permitted by law. Were they right to do so? — NOS4A2

From my point of view, and probably yours too, they would be wrong. From *their* point of view, it would be right. Societies set their own laws, as they should, yes?

When you consider Good and Evil in the Christian sense historically, I think it becomes much more difficult to consider for Law to actually be good. This is just something that I think about from time to time. — thewonder

I've also spent some time thinking about D&D alignments. First, law isn't good. That's part of what the alignment system says: there is a spectrum linking good and evil, and an independent spectrum linking law and chaos. When you start to give it serious thought, all kinds of problems emerge. In the end, I think we must conclude that D&D is just a game, and alignment is an attribute of the real world over-simplified to fit it into the game.

So you're not really into fantasy. That's OK. But what are you doing here? Did you play D&D at some point, or are you just seeking entertainment, as we all are? :smile:

Oh yes, there are many wonderful myths concerning the Templars. Some of them might even be true! ... Maybe. :smile:

But that doesn’t mean they’re right, — NOS4A2

Actually, and in practice, it does. The people of a tribe or nation may create laws as they wish, and they are "right" to do so. The laws they create apply only to themselves, and to those who choose to visit them. Americans are insane to allow (enforce?) gun ownership, but they are the ones who suffer all the shootings, so it's difficult to say they're "wrong". All we can do, form outside their borders and their society, is to sympathise, and not to allow guns in our own countries. There are a million other examples.

Your idea of rightness, and the way you express it, sounds like you are promoting the One and Only Truth in these matters, and I don't think you are. There is no universal 'right' in this case.

I've been reading fantasy books for 50 years now, and I played AD&D for 20 years until our little group petered out, and I haven't really seen what you describe. Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea, for example, is mostly independent of life on Earth, but there are always things common to both. It's almost unavoidable, isn't it? To create a world that has nothing at all in common with humanity or our Earth: is that really possible for a human author? Perhaps you're being a little too demanding? :smile:

In the end, all that matters is that the story being told is a Good Story. If it isn't, the book will fade, and if it is, nothing else matters. IMO, of course.

To pretend that we can successfully operate a human society without censorship is naive, I think. All we can do - and *I* think we should do - is to keep it to an absolute minimum.

My only contention was the legality of it. — NOS4A2

Laws are made by people. If the people think this is serious enough, and they find that awkward bastards ignore it, they turn it into a law. Such is their right. Your preference is valid, but the will of the people, expressed in their laws, overrule you if you're in their country/tribal area, etc.

That odd English they speak in the UK — T Clark

[Rant]
I assume you refer to England, the land where the English people live, and where they speak their own language: English? That our language has been copied and mutated so widely is a compliment, but English is our language, and those who live elsewhere do not speak it, they speak variants of it. And why not? Imitation is flattery. But the people of America (for example) speak American. Or, if we must acknowledge the source of their language, American English. It, and all other variants of English are the ones that are "odd", of course. [/Rant]

One of my favourite words is "solidungulate". It just sounds so good!

No-one is claiming this is a LAW or something. It's a sensible suggestion that works often enough that we continue to use it even if there are occasions when it is accidentally misapplied. A rule of thumb. We use them all the time, don't we? :wink:

The point I'm trying to make is, why respect subjective morality? Why respect the way somebody feels, their pain, their suffering, more than objective morality? — Marzipanmaddox

The difficulty with this apparently common-sense approach is that "objective" communicates universal applicability, and independence of individual beliefs, opinions, and so on. An objective morality would have to be universally accepted and agreed. After all, if it wasn't, it wouldn't be "objective", would it? And, to conclude, there is no universally accepted morality or moral code that I know of. I'm open to learning here: have I got this wrong?

OK, I'll bite: what is "High Fantasy"? :smile: [And why is 'Lawful Good' banned there?]

Is it a myth that people unnecessarily alarmed in this way could be injured in the fight to escape the (non-existent) fire? And isn't that potential injury the basis for a common-sense-based prohibition of shouting "fire" in a crowded area, when there is no actual fire? :roll:

Thanks for creating this topic! It's a bit weird though, commenting on something I actually know something about! :rofl:

Some years ago, there was an "Iron Man" version of a definition of software engineering — Pattern-chaser

I tracked some of this stuff down. Here's what I found.

In order to propose Knowledge Areas and Related Disciplines for “generally accepted” knowledge and to do so based on recognized, public and verifiable sources of information, it was decided that the tables of contents of general software engineering textbooks, the curricula of undergraduate and graduate programs in software engineering, and the admission criteria for graduate programs would constitute the input to our analysis. A total of 24 textbooks and 29 programs were examined.For the purposes of this Straw Man version, a potential knowledge area had to be mentioned in the table of contents of at least one quarter of the textbooks sampled to qualify as a proposed Knowledge Area.The ISO/IEC 12207 standard on Software Life Cycle Processes is used as the basis and vocabulary for the classification of the different topics related to the life cycle. A number of other topics not related to the life-cycle were also considered.

The list of proposed Knowledge Areas based on ISO/IEC 12207 is: — SWEBOK

• Development Process
• Requirements Analysis
• Detailed Design
• Coding
• Testing
• Maintenance Process
• Configuration Management
• Quality Assurance
• Verification and Validation
• Improvement Process

The list of proposed Knowledge Areas that do not converge well with ISO/IEC 12207 is:

• Software Development Methods−Object Oriented−Formal Methods−Prototyping
• Software Development Environments
• Software Engineering Overview & DefinitionüMeasurement/Metrics
• Software Reliability

The list of proposed Related Disciplines is:

• Computer Science
• Project Management
• Electrical Engineering
• Mathematics
• Telecommunications/NetworksüManagement
• Science
• Other Engineering Disciplines
• Cognitive Sciences

Sorry about the text layout, it was originally laid out as a bulleted and tabbed list, but it seems I can't embed lists into quotes. :fear: The original is here.

As to your question, it seems to me that you're perched between thinkers(-doers) and practitioners. Folks can be in either or both camps, but they're two different camps. — tim wood

Disclaimer: I'm writing here as an experienced software designer, not as an expert in the "philosophy of programming".

There are not two camps; there is only one. No programming project can succeed without both thinking and doing being present in the appropriate combination. All successful practitioners know this so deeply they wouldn't even think of expressing it, like we don't notice we're breathing (most of the time).

Those who reside in only one 'camp' are not capable of successfully practicing 'programming'. They might be former practitioners who are thinking about how their discipline might move forward, or they might have some other aim. They just aren't software designers.

I accidentally ended up drilling down into expensive consultancy practices — alcontali

Yes, there's a whole industry, supposedly based on 'teaching' the latest fads. Snake oil, mostly, as you suggest. Agile is one of the recent fads, and it has been changed from its original (worthwhile) intent to something that can be taught in a classroom, and produce Agile Managers. :scream: :rage: It makes actual practitioners wince and despair.

it seems to be quite divorced from the philosophy of mathematics, even though that is where it all originated. Alan Turing, Alonzo Church, Bertrand Russell, Stephen Kleene, and John Von Neumann, just to name a few, dreamed up abstract machines that were later painstakingly implemented. — alcontali

Yes, and then other people learned to program them. Programming is a separate discipline. And it is divorced from mathematics, as you observe. But the names we give our discipline don't help. "Programming" and "software engineering" do not offer the right tone/view, in my opinion. They neglect the heart of our discipline: design. I always called myself a "software designer". Just as there is art at the heart of science, so also is there art in software. And science too; quite a lot of it! And this is but the start.

Some years ago, there was an "Iron Man" version of a definition of software engineering, and the list of associated disciplines, that the successful candidate should master was extensive. It included psychology and an understanding of how humans think and work together. And loads more.

As for the philosophy of programming, well philosophy is about thinking, so thinking about software engineering is presumably practicing the philosophy of programming? If this is a good definition, I think all capable software practitioners are also philosophers (of programming, if nothing else). :chin:

Or the world of some insects and others that have more than three kinds of colour receptors? — unenlightened

Some humans, most of them women, have four colour receptor types. It's quite rare, I think.

It'd be like what they say about Inuits and words for snow, which apparently is a bit of a myth. — thewonder

This is is true, but in a very mundane way. I don't think Inuits have so many distinct words for snow, but their language does allow them to describe it in many different ways. Just as we have the word "rain", but we use it as "heavy rain", "light rain", driving rain", "frozen rain" and so on, giving us a lot more phrases to describe the weather than we have individual words. The same applies, I think, to describing snow as an Inuit.

I already explained my intent. Perhaps you correctly diagnose my ramblings as "silly"?

[ I'm a designer by profession. Flexibility of thought is a way of life for us, and rigidity of thought the worst fate we could encounter. Other perspectives are available. ]

If the knob falls off a door, we have a knobless door, not a wall. — Hanover

Yes, we do, but (assuming the door is the sort that can only be opened by twisting the knob and pushing/pulling) functionally, that knobless door is indistinguishable from a wall. The OP mentioned purpose, and in this context, the knobless door is (in effect) a wall, even though this is not - cannot be - so literally.

My original thought was, couldn't the universe as a whole exist by itself? Even that's not for certain these days with the many worlds theory. — Kilvayne

In that case, I think we substitute the label "multiverse" or "multiverses" for "universe", and the concept (of solitary existence) continues undisturbed, yes?

Can something exist by itself? — InTheChair

It can if the thing that exists is Everything. Sometimes we call it "the universe". Anything else that exists presumably exists within the universe, so can't be alone?

I was only trying to avoid expressing myself dogmatically, so I allowed for exceptions. Recognition and acceptance only seem possible if you retain a strictly flexible approach, don't you think? :wink:

What say you? — Bitter Crank

I say your summary is about right. I wish I could be more positive. But the awful truth is that humanity is a predatory parasite on Earth, capturing the resources of our host and devouring them without constraint. Our numbers (population) seem to relate to cancer cells, in the sense that we reproduce uncontrollably. Our end appears nigh. :meh:

What are paladins, then?

That would only be the case if nothing can shown to be a fact. But I wouldn't say that. — Terrapin Station

Perhaps you wouldn't.

Almost nothing can be shown to be a fact. You might not choose to say that either, but I would. :razz:

You don't need to defend NOT believing in something. — khaled

This is said so often in discussions of atheism, but it's not as clear as it looks. Only those who are indifferent to God, and get on with their lives without a second thought of God, are properly covered by your sentiment. Any atheist who proclaims or asserts their views are indulging in belief, not a lack of it. They believe that God does not exist. This is an active belief, which (I suppose) justifies as much defending as any other belief. For myself, I don't care to defend my beliefs, although I'll happily tell you what they are, and discuss them with you, if you ask.

where are the 'old-fashioned atheists' nowadays who can provide me with the intellectual tools to reinforce my atheistic beliefs? — Purple Pond

I suspect they're around, but keeping out of the limelight. I'm a believer, btw, not an atheist. But I think the real atheists find the concept of God so unlikely that they simply take no notice of it at all, and just get on with their lives. These are the atheists I respect the most. They don't get into the faces of believers, attacking their beliefs, they just get on with their own lives, and their own beliefs.

As I understand it, the 'new atheists' you list are conceited and unpleasant people who assert, loudly and longly, that their atheist views are the only views possible for a rational and intellectually-aware human. Everyone else is wrong. This is dogmatism, and just as nonsensical and unpleasant as any believer who also holds that their truth is the One and Only Truth. I think you are right to have drifted away from this position. :up: