From: utzoo!decvax!yale-com!bj
Newsgroups: net.followup
Title: Re: Dr. D., math, etc.
Article-I.D.: yale-com.505
Posted: Thu May 13 00:46:19 1982
Received: Thu May 13 03:49:06 1982
Expires: Thu May 20 00:46:19 1982

                               If programming were a science, there would
    be only one way to program something, and the methods would produce
    repeatable results every time.  Clearly this is nonesense.

Clearly this is nonsense.  A problem in science does not always have
one solution.

If an engineer wants to build a bridge, there is no fixed type of bridge
that should be used in a particular location, it is decided by the
whim of some person or current trends.

If a mathematician wants to prove a theorem he can often choose between
several proof methods, break the proof in lemmas in several ways, order
the pieces in several ways, and decide what to use as a basis and how
to use them (there are scores of different proofs for the Pythagorean
theorem, none of thwrong).

Science does not limit you to one way to solve a problem, it is a method
which tries to limit you to the set of correct solutions.

                                        B.J.
                                        (Herbison@yale)
                                        (decvax!yale-comix!herbison)