From the mathematicians and scientists of the 20th centuries to today's ninja craftsmen/craftswomen, Software community has lost something along the way. Instead of carefully observing scientific methods and maintaining objectivity, we have tangled ourselves in web of hype and celebrity culture - as if adopting today's YOLO motto. We have completely forgot how to reason scientifically about matters of technical dispute, instead, whoever is more opinionated or shouts louder wins - as if software is an abstract art where you can only form an opinion. This talk is a critique of the status quo. With a survey of the history of modern culture, we will try to find the origin of our mindset which is very much rooted in the postmodern thought. Then we review the steps we have taken wrong and at the end, we exemplify the techniques of formal/scientific reasoning. A sobering talk yet not without sprinkles of fun and sense of humour... If you have always felt something is wrong... here is the red pill for you...

1. >>> where did we go wrong?
@aliostad
From
Hard Science
To
Baseless Opinions

2. >>> Disclaimer
This talk is not designed to discuss a particular tool or technology.
While I am very pleased to see you here, I felt I had to re-iterate
this to make sure you make the best of your time in this
conference. Enjoy!
@aliostad

3. @aliostad
Beware!!
Some non-technical content ahead…
discretion is advised…

4. @aliostad
Nothing I will tell you will be as shocking
as today’s events

5. @aliostad
Studied and worked in medicine
total of >>> 12 years
until I realised I didn’t like it

6. @aliostad
Vanishing Point
Detection /// Inverse
Perspective Mapping

7. @aliostad
Arrow /// Text
Recognition

8. @aliostad
> stackoverflow
> £1.5 bln
global fashion
destination
> 35% every year

9. @aliostad
/// decision
making

10. @aliostad

11. @aliostad
/// “Irony / Sarcasm”

12. @aliostad
/// “Special attention
to Diversity”
(pluralism)

13. @aliostad
/// “works for me, YMMV”
(self-refrentiality,
Relativism)

14. @aliostad
Postmodern thought is broadly
characterized by tendencies to
epistemological and moral relativism,
pluralism, self-referentiality, and irony.
Wikipedia
/// Coincidence?

15. @aliostad
1966

16. @aliostad
“In Modern architecture
we have operated too
long under the
restrictions of unbending
rectangular forms sup-
posed to have grown out
of the technical
requirements of the frame
and the mass-produced
curtain wall.”
/// Architecture

17. @aliostad
I’m OK-
You’re OK
Thomas Harris
1967
/// Psychology

18. @aliostad
/// Painting and sculpture

19. @aliostad
“My Bed”
Tracey Emin
1998
/// Conceptual Arts

20. @aliostad
Slapstick
Kurt Vonnegut
1976
/// Literature

21. @aliostad
Shame
Salman Rushdie
1983
/// Literature

22. @aliostad
/// so what?
• Objectivity looked wrong in the face of
relativism (subjectivity)
• Scientific methods as the driving force
of modernism lost some clout
• Elements of magical thinking and
fantasy entered into our culture
• In short, the burden of proof has
disappeared

23. @aliostad
/// elements of
fantasy

24. @aliostad
/// objectivity

25. @aliostad
/// example
“What Slack is amazingly good for, is communities. It’s better than
Twitter and Facebook groups for communities.”
“We know slack is cool and there’s no denying that it has its uses,
but it just didn’t work for us.”
“We have experienced a great increase in team-wide communication
since moving everyone to basecamp”

26. @aliostad
/// example

27. @aliostad
/// example

28. @aliostad
/// How would you feel?

29. @aliostad
/// example

30. @aliostad
/// example

31. @aliostad
/// Soylent

32. @aliostad
/// Soylent

33. @aliostad
/// Zicam

34. @aliostad
/// Theranos - 2013

35. @aliostad
/// Theranos - 2014

36. @aliostad
/// Theranos - 2015
“Theranos is just one example among many for which major
efforts and major claims about biomedical progress seem to
be happening outside the peer-reviewed scientific
literature... The main motive appears to be to develop
products and services, rather than report new discoveries as
research scholarship. Products, services, and profit
appear to be more important than scientific
publications.”
Professor Ioannidis - Biomedical Scientist (Washington Post)

37. @aliostad
/// Theranos - Feb 2016

38. @aliostad
/// Theranos - Oct 2016

39. @aliostad
Do you see what
happens?!
This is what
happens when you
do not follow
scientific
methods…

40. @aliostad

41. @aliostad
/// How does science work?
• Mathematical Proof
• Empirical Evidence
Burden of proof lies with whomever
claiming to change state of the art.

42. @aliostad
/// Studies
Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho - University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Literature Review of 180 studies in Programming
The form of the conditional statement1
Static vs Dynamic typing2
Loops3

43. @aliostad
/// Studies
Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho - University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Literature Review of 180 studies in Programming

44. @aliostad
“The required techniques of effective
reasoning are pretty formal, but as long as
programming is done by people that don't
master them, the software crisis will remain
with us and will be considered an incurable
disease.”
Edsger Dijkstra

45. @aliostad

46. @aliostad
/// mathematical reasoning
High Availability in containers
A A A
B B B
A+B A+B A+B
A+B A+B A+Bvs.

47. @aliostad
/// mathematical reasoning
High Availability in containers
A A A
B B B
99% 9997
9997
9994
99%
99%99%

48. @aliostad
/// mathematical reasoning
High Availability in containers
A+B A+B A+B
A+B A+B A+B
99%99%
99%99%
99999985

49. @aliostad
/// mathematical reasoning
Binomial Distribution

50. @aliostad
/// mathematical reasoning
Binomial Distribution

51. @aliostad
/// reasoning
Health Endpoint API Responsibility
API
Request Response
status
200 or 500

52. @aliostad
/// reasoning
Health Endpoint API Responsibility
Domain
( x )
Codomain
( y )
Function ( f )

53. @aliostad
/// difference
engine
In 1823, the British government gave Babbage
£1700 to start work on the project… By the
time the government abandoned the project in
1842, Babbage had received and spent over
£17,000 on development, which still fell short
of achieving a working engine. The
government valued only the machine's
output (economically produced tables), not
the development (at unknown and
unpredictable cost to complete) of the
machine itself.
Charles Babbage

54. @aliostad
/// analytical
engine
Universality of a programmable machine

55. @aliostad
Konrad Zuse

56. @aliostad
/// Alan Turing
Turing-Completeness

57. @aliostad

58. @aliostad
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/centurylink/files/2015/05/decision-making.jpg
By Scanned from a copy, and intellectual property owned by Spire books., Fair
use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2243801
http://www.unicornsrule.com/wp-content/uploads/rainbows-unicorns.jpg
http://1.viki.io/d/1863c/8b75dc48c9.gif
https://medium.com/@lelper/why-our-team-stopped-using-
slack-32ba64977fad#.p106z78k9
http://blog.keithcirkel.co.uk/why-we-should-stop-using-grunt/
http://blog.varunarora.com/why-we-stopped-using-drupal-for-our-platform/

59. @aliostad
http://openmymind.net/2011/3/23/Stop-Using-Mocks/
http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5577
https://www.troyhunt.com/working-with-154-million-records-on/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution
http://orig07.deviantart.net/c12e/f/2013/135/a/1/
this_is_what_happens__larry__by_redfill-d65dhmr.jpg
https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/handle/123456789/47698