Interesting Paper: "Vida"

I've just read this great paper by Yayo Herrero

• Vida

Quotes from "Why should physicists study history?"

My top highlights from the wonderful paper Why should physicists study history? by Matthew Stanley:

"History is not a list of names and dates. It's a way of thinking that can be powerful and illuminating."

"Social interactions really do influence what scientist produce."

"How a community tells its history changes the way it thinks about itself."

"A historical perspective on science can help physicists understand what is going on when they practice their craft, and it provides numerous tools that are useful for physicists themselves."

"Physics is a social endeavor."

"Research is done by people. And people have likes and dislikes, egos and prejudices. Physicists, like everyone else get attached to their favorite ideas and hang on them perhaps long after they should let them go."

"The history of science can help dismantle the myth of the purely rational genius living outside the everyday world. It makes physics more human."

"And a more human physics is a good thing. For starters, it makes physics more accessible."

"A field in which people are aknowledged as people is much more appealing than one in which they are just calculating machines."

"Physics only work when people talk to each other and communication is not always easy."

"Everything seems obvious in retrospect."

"The history of physics can remind us how difficult is to justify ideas that now seem obvious."

"Complexity, not simplicity , has ruled the practice of science."

"Every discovery has come out of a messy mix of people, ideas, accidents and arguments."

"Students and young researchers are often heartened to learn that physics is hard work and that it is ok for their own efforts not to look like a text-boo presentation. Messiness is a standard. Mistakes are normal. The results of physics are not self-evident."

"The history of physics suggests that there are usually several ways to approach a problem."

"Turning complexity into good physics requires creativity. You can never tell what weird idea will help clarify a confusing observation or provide the key to interpreting an equation. History uncovers the strange stew of concepts that were necessary for the development of physics."

"The interplay of various approaches is what brought us a modern view."

"Strange but ultimately useful perspectives come from fields and disciplines apparently distant from the problem at hand."

"The history of science shows how important it is for scientists across different fields to talk to each other. Conversations among separate groups are healthy. Apparently isolated problems are often closedly tied together, and you never know where you will find the weird idea that solves your difficulty."

"The best strategy for encouraging diverse ideas is to cultivate a diverse community."

"Underrepresented groups that offer different ways of thingking are often the source of fresh insights and novel methods."

"Underrepresented groups are usually marginalized because of cultural inertia or deliberate decisions made long ago."

"The diversity of ideas and interpretations serves as a reminder that physics is a work in progress. Knowledge is provisional. There are always new ways to tackle a problem, and there is always more to be learned."

"Accepting uncertainty would require changes in how science is taught."

"Curiosity should be revered, and everyone should be encouraged to ask, what else?"

"If scientist are not explicit and honest about their doubts, a crisis of confidence arises when that uncertainty is revealed."

"Physics wasn't always as it is."

"The flip side of accepting physics will be different in the future is accepting that it was different in the past. Everyone has a tendency to assume that the way things are now is the norm. But history makes it clear that things were not always this way. An understanding of why people used to think differently is a powerful tool for understanding people today. By drawing attention to older, usnpoken assumptions, history shows us how to start paying attention to our own."

"A knowledge of the historic and physical background, gives the kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering" Einstein

"..they should study the history of those ideas and understand the circumstances in which they were justified and found useful."

"History trains you to think critically about received ideas. History provides evidence of roads not taken."

"Science's plurality of interpretation can make the history of science a resource for modern scientific research." Hasok Chang

"Complementary Science -> recovering forgotten and unsolved puzzles from the past."

"Putting complementary science into practice demands difficult self-examination. Thinking deeply about assumptions and accepted knowledge can be hard to do in professional scientific contexts, but history is a mode in which it's encouraged."

"The simple realization that people used to think differently can be quite powerful."

"Physics doesn't have rigid rules."

"Scientist simply don't follow a rigid, linear problem-solving system. Sometimes they start with a hypothesis, sometimes with a strange observation, sometimes with a weird anomaly in an otherwise straightforward experiment."

"... a scientist must be an "unscrupulous opportunist", adopting and adapting various approaches as new challenges arise."

"History teaches that knowledge is not fixed."

"Engaging with history will teach you to understand ideas on their own terms."

"Historical thinking makes its subject dynamic. It helps you think about science as a series of questions rather than a series of statements. Those questions will continue into the future, and it is helpful to know what has been asked so far." "In the end, history of science exposes scientists to new ways of thinking and forces them to reexamine what is already known. Such intellectual flexibility is essential for any discipline, but it's particularly important for fields as influential and authoritative as physics and other sciences."

Interesting Paper: "Designing software for ease of extension and contraction"

I've just read this great paper by David L.Parnas

• Designing software for ease of extension and contraction

Interesting Paper: "Design Methodology for Reliable Software Systems"

I've just read this very interesting paper by Barbara Liskov

• Design Methodology for Reliable Software Systems

Interesting Paper: "'Claro!': An Essay on Discursive Machismo"

I've just read this wonderful paper by Diego Gambetta

• "Claro!": An Essay on Discursive Machismo

this great paper talks about how "Claro!" attitudes in communication, "characterized by strong opinions on everything from the outset of discussion", and the set of beliefs about knowledge behind them can make impossible to get to positive results in group deliberative processes.

A very interesting concept I got to know through Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca's La desfachatez intelectual. Escritores e intelectuales ante la política book.

Unfortunately, "Claro!" attitudes are widespread in our culture...

Interesting Paper: "Why should physicists study history?"

I've just read this wonderful paper by Matthew Stanley

• Why should physicists study history?

This is a gem full of wonderful ideas about diversity, group dynamics, critical thinking and the pursue of knowledge that I think are also valuable to software development and, probably, to any team or community effort.

Interesting Paper: "DIP in the Wild"

I've just reread this wonderful paper by Brett L. Schuchert

• DIP in the Wild

Interesting Paper: "Protected Variation: The Importance of Being Closed"

I've just reread this wonderful paper by Craig Larman

• Protected Variation: The Importance of Being Closed

Interesting Paper: "Objects of value"

I've just read this very interesting paper by Kevlin Henney

• Objects of value

Interesting Paper: "Public versus Published Interfaces"

I've just read this great paper by Martin Fowler

• Public versus Published Interfaces

Interesting Paper: "OO Design Quality Metrics, An Analysis of Dependencies"

I've just read this interesting paper by Robert Martin:

• OO Design Quality Metrics, An Analysis of Dependencies

Interesting Paper: "Programming as Theory Building"

I've just read this great paper by Peter Naur:

• Programming as Theory Building

Thanks to Álvaro García for recommending it to me.

Interesting Paper: "The Humble Dialog Box"

I've just read this great paper by Michael Feathers:

• The Humble Dialog Box

It describes a design technique to facilitate testing of GUIs, which is also described by Martin Fowler in Humble View.

Interesting Paper: "Mock Roles, not Objects"

I've just read this very interesting paper by Steve Freeman, Nat Pryce, Tim Mackinnon and Joe Walnes about mock objects as a design technique for identifying types in a system based on the roles the objects play:

• Mock Roles, not Objects

They talk about the importance of RDD, the Law of Demeter and Tell Don't Ask in this technique and how it can lead to an OO style based in composition rather than inheritance, encouraging designs with good separation of concerns and modularity.

It also gives many heuristics to help drive your design using mock objects and fights against some typical misconceptions surrounding mock objects.

Interesting Paper: "Out of the tar pit"

I've just read this very interesting paper by Ben Moseley & Peter Marks presenting Functional Relational Programming (FRP):

• Out of the tar pit

Interesting Paper: "Design Patterns in Dynamic Programming"

I've just read the slides of a very interesting talk by Peter Norvig:

• Design Patterns in Dynamic Programming

Interesting Paper: "Functional Programming Patterns and Their Role in Instruction"

I've just read this interesting paper by Eugene Wallingford:

• Functional Programming Patterns and Their Role in Instruction