Software guidance-ists think they know what (enough of) the people want. If you can identify the peaks in the evolutionary fitness landscape, and they're stable long enough to be successful by aiming before you start, then guidance-ism makes sense in that time scale. Guidance-ism in organic evolution is flawed because it breaks down if you can't see where you're going (among hundreds of other reasons)--and there's ample evidence that you can't in that context. For software you only have to be right for long enough to make your money, or solve your problem. Your descendants don't suffer for your shortsightedness, or at least not to the same degree. OSS is also guidance-ist, by the way, which is yet another problem with your scenario. You want randomist programming? Do some random start Core Wars, or something. Software engineering involves visualizing some sort of answer to a problem before you start, or at least early on. Changing how you get there doesn't make it not guidance-ist.
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I don't think it's that complicated.
Date: 2007-12-16 02:39 pm (UTC)OSS is also guidance-ist, by the way, which is yet another problem with your scenario. You want randomist programming? Do some random start Core Wars, or something.
Software engineering involves visualizing some sort of answer to a problem before you start, or at least early on. Changing how you get there doesn't make it not guidance-ist.