From the mathematicians and scientists of the 20th centuries to today's ninja craftsmen/craftswomen, Software community has lost something along the way. Instead of carefully observing scientific methods and maintaining objectivity, we have tangled ourselves in web of hype and celebrity culture - as if adopting today's YOLO motto. We have completely forgot how to reason scientifically about matters of technical dispute, instead, whoever is more opinionated or shouts louder wins - as if software is an abstract art where you can only form an opinion.

1. >>> where did we go wrong?
@aliostad
From
Hard Science
To
Baseless Opinions

2. @aliostad
Studied and worked in medicine
total of >>> 12 years
until I realised I didn’t like it

3. @aliostad
Vanishing Point
Detection /// Inverse
Perspective Mapping

4. @aliostad
Arrow /// Text
Recognition

5. @aliostad
> stackoverflow
> £1.5 bln
global fashion
destination
> 35% every year

6. @aliostad
/// decision
making

7. @aliostad

8. @aliostad
/// “Irony / Sarcasm”

9. @aliostad
/// “Special attention
to Diversity”
(pluralism)

10. @aliostad
/// “works for me, YMMV”
(self-refrentiality,
Relativism)

11. @aliostad
Postmodern thought is broadly
characterized by tendencies to
epistemological and moral relativism,
pluralism, self-referentiality, and irony.
Wikipedia
/// Coincidence?

12. @aliostad
1966

13. @aliostad
“In Modern architecture
we have operated too
long under the
restrictions of unbending
rectangular forms sup-
posed to have grown out
of the technical
requirements of the frame
and the mass-produced
curtain wall.”
/// Architecture

14. @aliostad
I’m OK-
You’re OK
Thomas Harris
1967
/// Psychology

15. @aliostad
/// Painting and sculpture

16. @aliostad
“My Bed”
Tracey Emin
1998
/// Conceptual Arts

17. @aliostad
Slapstick
Kurt Vonnegut
1976
/// Literature

18. @aliostad
Shame
Salman Rushdie
1983
/// Literature

19. @aliostad
/// so what??
• Objectivity looked wrong in the face of
relativism (subjectivity)
• Scientific methods as the driving force
of modernism lost some clout
• Elements of magical thinking and
fantasy entered into our culture
• In short, the burden of proof has
disappeared

20. @aliostad
/// elements of
fantasy

21. @aliostad
/// objectivity

22. @aliostad
/// example
“What Slack is amazingly good for, is communities. It’s better than
Twitter and Facebook groups for communities.”
“We know slack is cool and there’s no denying that it has its uses,
but it just didn’t work for us.”
“We have experienced a great increase in team-wide communication
since moving everyone to basecamp”

23. @aliostad
/// example

24. @aliostad
/// example

25. @aliostad
/// example

26. @aliostad
/// How would you feel?

27. @aliostad
/// example

28. @aliostad
/// example

29. @aliostad
/// How does science work?
• Mathematical Proof
• Empirical Evidence
Burden of proof lies with whom
claiming to change state of the art.

30. @aliostad
“The required techniques of effective
reasoning are pretty formal, but as long as
programming is done by people that don't
master them, the software crisis will remain
with us and will be considered an incurable
disease.”
Edsger Dijkstra

31. @aliostad

32. @aliostad
/// mathematical reasoning
High Availability in containers
A A A
B B B
A+B A+B A+B
A+B A+B A+Bvs.

33. @aliostad
/// mathematical reasoning
High Availability in containers
A A A
B B B
99% 9997
9997
9994
99%
99%99%

34. @aliostad
/// mathematical reasoning
High Availability in containers
A+B A+B A+B
A+B A+B A+B
99%99%
99%99%
99999985

35. @aliostad
/// mathematical reasoning
Binomial Distribution

36. @aliostad
/// mathematical reasoning
Binomial Distribution

37. @aliostad
/// mathematical reasoning
Health Endpoint API Responsibility
API
Request Response
status
200 or 500

38. @aliostad
/// mathematical reasoning
Health Endpoint API Responsibility
Domain
( x )
Codomain
( y )
Function ( f )

39. @aliostad
/// traces of objectivity

40. @aliostad
/// difference
engine
In 1823, the British government gave Babbage
£1700 to start work on the project… By the
time the government abandoned the project in
1842, Babbage had received and spent over
£17,000 on development, which still fell short
of achieving a working engine. The
government valued only the machine's
output (economically produced tables), not
the development (at unknown and
unpredictable cost to complete) of the
machine itself.
Charles Babbage

41. @aliostad
/// analytical
engine
Universality of a programmable machine

42. @aliostad
Konrad Zuse

43. @aliostad
/// Alan Turing
Turing-Completeness

44. @aliostad

45. @aliostad
/// re-cap
Burden of proof lies with whom
claiming to change state of the art.
Just be aware of the impact of post-
modern thinking in your tech life…
Try bringing objectivity and scientific
reasoning back to every important decision.
Remember “… we come from a long line of scientists”

46. @aliostad
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/centurylink/files/2015/05/decision-making.jpg
By Scanned from a copy, and intellectual property owned by Spire books., Fair
use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2243801
http://www.unicornsrule.com/wp-content/uploads/rainbows-unicorns.jpg
http://1.viki.io/d/1863c/8b75dc48c9.gif
https://medium.com/@lelper/why-our-team-stopped-using-
slack-32ba64977fad#.p106z78k9
http://blog.keithcirkel.co.uk/why-we-should-stop-using-grunt/
http://blog.varunarora.com/why-we-stopped-using-drupal-for-our-platform/

47. @aliostad
http://openmymind.net/2011/3/23/Stop-Using-Mocks/
http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5577
https://www.troyhunt.com/working-with-154-million-records-on/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution