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lanstintoday at 6:16 PM1 replyview on HN

Metamathematics, by Kleene, is programming in maths. Theoretical computer science is maths. A lot of foundations work is programming. Coding itself is like an extended problem set from a maths class. LaTeX itself is programming.

The difference to me is one of directionality - maths research is seeing a far off island and getting there by hook or by crook; bridge, draining the swamp, inventing an airplane or boat, whatever it takes. Software engineering is like covering a plain with tiles - every feature is ultimately filled in and the underlying beauty is obscured by a fractal of complexity required by the ever growing requirements.


Replies

lagrange77today at 7:40 PM

> Metamathematics, by Kleene, is programming in maths.

Ookay.

Back in the day i was confused by 'Linear programming', which is optimisation and has nothing to do with coding.

> every feature is ultimately filled in and the underlying beauty is obscured by a fractal of complexity required by the ever growing requirements.

Right. I would say Mathematics tries to unobscure (patterns in) nature. Engineering is creating tools, sometimes leveraging natural patterns. But yeah, Fourier or Laplace definitely created tools, too.