Comment by corethree
2 years ago
>I think this is mostly a philosophical statement, but it certainly has truth to it.
It's fact. What theory is there to prove that the following design is the best possible design? What does "best" even mean? We can't verify formally in anyway how good a design is overall.
We can verify, efficiency, we can verify speed, and we can verify correctness. But design? We can't verify that.
How do you prove that a bridge is the 'best' design? What does 'best' mean, for a bridge?
That's what a full formal theory encompasses. We need to define the term formally. It can be done for software organization.
We've defined it for algorithmic complexity. Turns out it's two metrics.. speed and memory. Best means the lowest N, with primitives being algorithmic loops.
What are the primitive modules used in program organization? Given 3 of the smallest possible primitive modules we can define in computing and all the ways possible to compose those three modules. What composition would be best? What is the metric that fits most well with our notion of best? There may be several metrics here. These questions are the ones that are asked when formalizing a theory derived from intuition.
For the bridge it's likely balancing several metrics we already know. Safety, cost, length, etc. Once those metrics are quantified a theory exists to find the best. It's called optimization theory.
Those formulas are not reversible. You can compute load bearing capacity of a design, and you can compute cost of a design, but you cannot start with load bearing capacity and cost, run those through a formula, and get a bridge. Or even a sketch of a bridge.
Design comes first, always, whether it is for real-world items or for software. The design is then validated using formal methods, and iterated until it meets the required goal.
If you still want to maintain your position that you can compute a bridge, feel free to point out a source that describes the formula for bridges. Or any object that takes significant engineering, really.
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