40: Cargo Cult Programming

When are you programming, and when are you just pretending ... really, really, well? Cargo cult science is a term Richard Feynman invented to describe one way of doing science wrong. The computer science world has adapted the label to "cargo cult programming". When you copy/pasta from Reddit or Stack Overflow or from a chat bot or from someone else's project, but you don't understand why the pasted code helps or what could prove it wrong, you aren't doing the job. You're not falling down on purpose, though! You're doing the thing we all do so well: you're fooling yourself. Feynman warns "You must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool!" This episode is short, but especially cogent in the age of AI and Open Source. Hosts: Jim McQuillan can be reached at jam@RuntimeArguments.fm Wolf can be reached at wolf@RuntimeArguments.fm Follow us on Mastodon: @RuntimeArguments@hachyderm.io If you have feedback for us, please send it to feedback@RuntimeArguments.fm Check out our webpage at http://RuntimeArguments.fm Theme music: Dawn by nuer self, from the album Digital Sky