I had fun developing a satirical “Devil’s Dictionary of #Computing” in #InsolventBook, inspired by the ‘Devil’s dictionary’ published by A. Pierce a century ago with gems like “PLAN: To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.” and by @karenhao ‘s great https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/04/13/1022568/big-tech-ai-ethics-guide/
#DevilsDictOfComputing 🧵

Here’s the draft “Devil’s Dictionary of #Computing”. I hope to extend the entries over time. You can find these scattered throughout INSOLVENT https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262545600/. I’ll group them a bit, non-alphabetically. @SEresearchers @academicchatter
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📑 Assumptions, n. pl.
👉🏻Facts about the project at the time of 👉🏻kickoff.

📑Kick-Off, n.
The short period in which all active project participants succumb to the illusion that they agree on what the project purpose is.
#DevilsDictOfComputing

📑 Facts, n. pl.
Claims made about the environment of technology design for which those who make them forgot to question where they came from, how they came about, which values they embody, whose values these are, whose facts they are, and whose interest that serves.
#DevilsDictOfComputing

📑 Problem, n.
Something that can be 👉🏻fixed or 👉🏻solved.

📑Fix, n. & v.
The source of tomorrow’s 👉🏻problems.

📑Problem-solving, n.
The process of 👉🏻fixing things that aren’t broken (because they don’t exist) and thereby creating new 👉🏻problems.
#DevilsDictOfComputing

📑 Rationality, n.
That form of deductive reasoning which can be encoded and computed.

📑 Judgement, n.
That which is 👉🏻irrational in 👉🏻human reasoning.

📑Irrationality, n.
Those parts of 👉🏻human life that 👉🏻rationality has no access to.

📑Human, n.
Annoying reminders of the real world.

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📑Models, n. pl.
The carpets under which, if we look carefully, we can find the human values, politics and moral decisions that have become code, features, qualities, documentation and other technological 👉🏻facts through the social practice we call systems design.
#DevilsDictOfComputing
@seresearchers

📑Goal Modeling, n.
The illusion that everything that matters can be represented as instrumental achievement to be met; the delusion that anything that can not be represented as instrumental achievement to be met cannot possibly matter. Both are common in 👉🏻requirements engineering.
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📑Requirements Engineering, n.
The social practice of turning wet, interesting issues such as human values, politics and moral decisions into dry, complicated diagrams (👉🏻models) that create the illusion that the work to be done is solidly understood.
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📑Software Engineering, n.

The social practice that converts 👉🏻human values, politics and moral decisions into code, features, qualities, documentation, and other technological 👉🏻facts.
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@seresearchers

📑Conflict, n.
Something that does not match up and needs to be fixed. Typically identified betw. a) alternative design solutions for a given problem easily addressed by identifying & 👉🏻modelling costs, benefits & risks, then trading them off 👉🏻rationally to select the optimum choice (that’s what engineers do); b) betw. development branches. (May the wrath of the Gods be upon you in eternity while you slowly roast in hell.) Other forms of conflict are invalid & 👉🏻irrational.
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