Tony's An Axiomatic Basis for Computer Programming[1] is the first academic paper that I read that I was able to understand when I was an undergrad. I think it unlocked something in me because before that I never believed that I would be able to read and understand scientific papers.

That was 35ish years ago. I just pulled up the paper now and I can't read the notation anymore... This might be something that I try applying an AI to. Get it to walk me through a paper paragraph-by-paragraph until I get back up to speed.

[1]:https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/363235.363259

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rramadass a day ago | parent | next [-]

Followup on the above with these two classics;

Retrospective: An Axiomatic Basis For Computer Programming. This was written 30 years after An Axiomatic Basis for Computer Programming to take stock on what was proven right and what was proven wrong - https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/retrospective-an-axiomatic-basi...

How Did Software Get So Reliable Without Proof? More detailed paper on the above theme (pdf) - https://6826.csail.mit.edu/2020/papers/noproof.pdf

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ontouchstart 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Thanks for the recommendation. I downloaded both social.pdf and noproof.pdf on my Kindle Scribe to read them carefully and revisited the discussions on EWD638 and EWD692.

It is very interesting to see how Sir Tony diverged from EDW: one is right in theoretical sense but cynical about human fallacies and how the society is heading towards more wasteful complexity, one is to live with it and stay optimistic.

There is a proverb in Chinese Taoism:

小隱隱於野，大隱隱於市

A small recluse hides in the wild, while a great recluse hides in the city

	▲	rramadass 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Nice comparison of Hoare vs. Dijkstra. Hoare was more focused and diplomatic while Dijkstra was more of a free-ranging philosopher. I still remember the first time i came across Hoare Logic/Triple and Dijkstra's GCL/Weakest precondition, understanding nothing and feeling like a complete dolt. As a young'un i thought knowing the syntax of a language and learning some idioms/patterns was all you needed for programming. Reading Hoare/Dijkstra showed me where mathematical theory met programming practice.

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aembleton a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I can recommend NotebookLM [1] for reading through scientific papers. You can then ask it questions and even get a podcast generated.

1. https://notebooklm.google/

	▲	vermilingua 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Please don't, can't we just have one thread without this shit