Reflections on Peter Naur's "Programming as Theory Building" and Its Relevance to Software Development
By
birdculture
A good honest bake. Not flashy, but you'll finish the whole bagel.
Summary
A reflective article about Peter Naur's influential essay "Programming as Theory Building." The author shares their experience of discovering this seminal work and finding that Naur's concept of "theory" perfectly captures the intangible understanding that programmers develop about the systems they build. The piece argues that this perspective is crucial for writing good code and creating maintainable software, and expresses surprise that this work isn't more widely recommended in programming circles.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledHow come nobody ever told me to read this?
I ended up reading it multiple times, as I attempted to collect my thoughts on why it makes so much sense.
I think Naur's 'theory' is that term when it comes to writing good code and creating maintainable software.
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