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judge2020yesterday at 11:34 PM1 replyview on HN

Mostly programmers think a system will act predictably given the same inputs. Most of computing doesn't work without that assumption.


Replies

sublineartoday at 1:01 AM

You're conflating "predictable" with "reproducible".

"Predictable" assumes there is an observer making a guess, but we all live by the knowledge that our assumptions may be wrong. We care less about that, and more about whether the system behaves consistently.

Consistent behavior is either a bug or a feature depending on what was expected. The system just is, man, and that's what we need.

"Nobody sits like this rock sits. You rock, rock. The rock just sits and is. You show us how to just sit here and that's what we need."