

Why programming is a good medium for expressing poorly understood ideas - urlwolf
http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/Why%20programming%20is--.html

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KevBurnsJr
... poorly understood - _and sloppily formulated_ \- ideas This is my favorite
part of programming :)

You have an idea and attempt to codify it. During the process, your code
starts to get uglier and uglier. Refactoring the code leads you to re-examine
your conceptualization of the problem, leading to new insights outside the
domain of programming. If your code does not lend well to abstraction, it's a
good indicator that perhaps your idea has missed the mark. See the structure
of the code, compare it to the structure of the idea and you have a whole new
platform for creativity. Think. Write. Refactor. Rinse and repeat.

Turning bad ideas into good ideas.

Perhaps the reason why so many successful startups are famous for inventions
resulting from other than their original ideas.

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stcredzero
Computers are a good tool for modeling things and managing complexity. Good
models will sometimes yield surprising and beneficial results. This is
becoming a part of the common wisdom expressed in a variety of ways:

"Evolution is smarter than you."

"The street will find its own use for technology."

Someone should do a Wikipedia-like site based on the old Connections series on
PBS. I think you could do a site like this based solely on the history of
technology and its interconnections.

~~~
naish
_Someone should do a Wikipedia-like site based on the old Connections series
on PBS. I think you could do a site like this based solely on the history of
technology and its interconnections._

Great idea! I've been missing the insights that James Burke delivered with the
original series.

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signa11
imho, the title of the paper is really great, and that's about it...

