Steve PurcellFeb 27

This Rich Hickey quote from 2011 is quite relevant in 2026:

"I think we're in this world I like to call guardrail programming. Right. It's really sad. We're like, I can make change cause I have tests. Right? Who does that? Who drives their car around banging against the guardrails, saying whoa, I'm glad I've got these guardrails because I'd never make it to the show on time."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxdOUGdseq4#t=16m08s

"Simple Made Easy" - Rich Hickey (2011)

YouTube
Show threadOlivier LeroyFeb 27
@sanityinc used the quote two day ago!
Show threadSteve PurcellFeb 27
@defuneste I think it lands differently now than when it was first made, for then-unimaginable reasons
Show threadBrian MarickFeb 27

@sanityinc @defuneste Yeah, I was active in both the Clojure and TDD worlds at the time, and it was clear Hickey was talking about a different kind of testing than I was doing. The kind I’d been doing in the ‘80s, where testing was not used as a tool for thinking about a problem or the design of a solution.

I had roughly the same attitude as Hickey until I sat down and used TDD on a serious project. I don’t know if he ever has. I’ve been out of Clojure for over a decade (!)

Show threadBrian MarickFeb 27

@sanityinc @defuneste It’s sort of an interesting meta-commentary. Both of us thought we could discard a methodology by reasoning about it rather than trying it. I was lucky that @RonJeffries argued me into giving it a try.

Part of a career of reasoned-through conclusions that didn’t stand up against experience. Eventually I figured out that maybe I’m not smart enough to get it right by sustained cogitation, so I needed to adopt an approach more driven by rapid feedback from the world.

Show threadDanil Suits

@marick @sanityinc @defuneste @RonJeffries

This reminds me of a comment from Devon Eriksen: "An alternative to rationalism was needed, you see, because reason is absolute bollocks at deciphering the universe."

Feb 27 at 4:57pmWeb
Show threadBrian MarickFeb 28
@vocumsineratio @sanityinc @defuneste @RonJeffries That’s relevant to my current spittle-flecked tirades against Karl Popper. He is not an empiricist, but rather a variant of idealist who compensates for the inability to have deductive-logic style certainty in science with the comforting certainty of a rigid methodology. (1/3)
Show threadBrian MarickFeb 28
His talk of falsification obscures the fact that he cares little for actual observations of the world – you don’t learn from observation – it merely signals to the theorist that (and perhaps where) the theory is wrong. Thereafter, it’s the internal logic of the theory that drives theory change. (2/3)
Show threadBrian MarickFeb 28

Essentially, a falsification says “something’s wrong” and, perhaps, “right around here,” but he’s explicit that such observations aren’t important beyond that – they don’t have causal power over *how* the theory is fixed. That’s the province of the ungovernable genius of the Great Scientist.

<end spittle-flecked rant> (3/3)