alt Hacker NewsThis paper is excellent for many reasons, but I want to emphasize how approachable it is. Anyone working as a developer can read this and get insights.
This stands in s t a r k contrast to other disciplines (e. g. Physics) where papers are usually ultra dense, making it hard to read even for subject-matter experts.
Replies
It's because it's an SPJ paper
Most of what we call "computer science" today is nothing more than digital carpentry.
If physics paper were not dense, they would be 400 pages long. It's still hard to read but in a different way.
Physics is a hard science. Software development is applied engineering. I’m sure there are applied engineering fields adjacent to physics where papers are fairly readable by practitioners.
Most developers would struggle quite a bit to read typical theoretical computer science papers.
perhaps although this is a fairly cutesy paper and there are cutesy physics papers too
Or you know, computer science papers. They're all science and no computer.
That's because it's a review paper. There are plenty of computer science papers that are impenetrable, or leave out all the important details.
Build systems don't involve anything really complex. Go and read some papers on unbounded model checking if you want unapproachable.