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"On the cruelty of really teaching computer science"
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html
"It is possible, and even tempting, to view a program as an abstract mechanism, as a device of some sort. To do so, however, is highly
dangerous: the analogy is too shallow because a program is, as a mechanism, totally different from all the familiar analogue devices we grew up with. Like all digitally encoded information, it has unavoidably the uncomfortable property that the smallest possible perturbations -i.e. changes of a single bit- can have the most drastic consequences ... In the discrete world of computing, there is no meaningful metric in which "small" changes and "small" effects go hand in hand, and there never will be.
...
Besides the notion of productivity, also that of quality control continues to be distorted by the reassuring illusion that what works with other devices works with programs as well. It is now two decades since it was pointed out that program testing may convincingly demonstrate the presence of bugs, but can never demonstrate their absence. After quoting this well-publicized remark devoutly, the software engineer returns to the order of the day and continues to refine his testing strategies, just like the alchemist of yore, who continued to refine his chrysocosmic purifications."
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html
"It is possible, and even tempting, to view a program as an abstract mechanism, as a device of some sort. To do so, however, is highly
dangerous: the analogy is too shallow because a program is, as a mechanism, totally different from all the familiar analogue devices we grew up with. Like all digitally encoded information, it has unavoidably the uncomfortable property that the smallest possible perturbations -i.e. changes of a single bit- can have the most drastic consequences ... In the discrete world of computing, there is no meaningful metric in which "small" changes and "small" effects go hand in hand, and there never will be.
...
Besides the notion of productivity, also that of quality control continues to be distorted by the reassuring illusion that what works with other devices works with programs as well. It is now two decades since it was pointed out that program testing may convincingly demonstrate the presence of bugs, but can never demonstrate their absence. After quoting this well-publicized remark devoutly, the software engineer returns to the order of the day and continues to refine his testing strategies, just like the alchemist of yore, who continued to refine his chrysocosmic purifications."
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