A rant a week

Computers have proven immensely effective as aids to clear thinking. Muddled and half-baked ideas have sometime survived for centuries because luminaries have deluded themselves as much as their followers or because lesser lights, fearing ridicule, couldn’t summon up the nerve to admit that they didn’t know what the Master was talking about. A test as near foolproof as one could get of whether you understand something as well as you think is to express it as a computer program and then see if the program does what it is supposed to. Computers are not sycophants and won’t make enthusiastic noises to ensure their promotion or camouflage what they don’t know.

What you get is what you said.