From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2007-07-14T14:58:50+09:00
Subject: Re: I need serious help!

On Sat, Jul 14, 2007 at 11:57:47AM +0900, Peter Seebach wrote:
> In message <46440c255524a060ec6840278884d168@localhost>, MenTaLguY writes:
> >On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 11:27:06 +0900, Joe Wiltrout <wiltroutja@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> And how do you know Rome wasn't built in a day?  For all you know, it could
> >> have been built in 10 seconds flat. No one can prove anything. It's a fact.
> 
> >If you can't (at least informally) prove a logical proposition, you've
> >got no hope as a programmer.
> 
> Strictly speaking, our ability to prove the claim that Rome wasn't built in
> a day is contingent on certain assumptions about the consistency of physical
> laws, etcetera, etcetera.
> 
> Sadly, in this fallen world, we must make a number of assumptions.  That is,
> assuming that there's a world.  And assuming that we want to reach conclusions.
> No one has ever proven to my satisfaction that we ought to reach conclusions.

Those assumptions are part of informally proving a logical proposition.
Watch:

  1. Assuming A, and
  2. Assuming B, then
  3. A + B imply C
  4. C implies D
  5. Therefore, D.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Kent Beck: "I always knew that one day Smalltalk would replace Java.  I
just didn't know it would be called Ruby."