I read this when I was younger, but I only now get it, and realize how true it all is.

13) Humans writing code is an inherently flawed concept. Doesn't matter what form the code takes. Machine code, assembly language, C, Perl, or a ChatGPT prompt. It's all flawed in the same way. We have not yet invented a technology or mechanism which avoids it. And high level abstraction doesn't really help. It hides problems only to create new ones, and other problems simply never go away.

21) Loosely coupled interfaces made our lives easier because it forced us to compartmentalize our efforts into something manageable. But it's hard to prove that this is a better outcome overall, as it forces us to solve problems in ways that still lead to worse outcomes than if we had used a simpler [formal] logic.

34) We will probably end up pushing our technical abilities to the limit in order to design a superior system, only to find out in the end that simpler formal logic is what we needed all along.

55) We're becoming stupider and worse at using the tools we already have. We're already shit at using language just for communicating with each other. Assuming we could make better programs with it is nonsensical.

For a long time now I've been upset at computer science's lack of innovation in the methods we use to solve problems. Programming is stupidly flawed. I've never been good at math, so I never really thought about it before, but math is really the answer to what I wish programming was: a formal system for solving a problem, and a formal system for proving that the solution is correct. That's what we're missing from software. That's where we should be headed.