It Used To Be The

Many Mathematicians Derive Part Of Their Self-esteem By Feeling Themselves The Proud Heirs Of A Long Tradition Of Rational Thinking; I Am Afraid They Idealize Their Cultural Ancestors.

We Are All Shaped By The Tools We Use, In Particular: The Formalisms We Use Shape Our Thinking Habits, For Better Or For Worse, And That Means That We Have To Be Very Careful In The Choice Of What We Learn And Teach, For Unlearning Is Not Really Possible.

So-called "natural Language" Is Wonderful For The Purposes It Was Created For, Such As To Be Rude In, To Tell Jokes In, To Cheat Or To Make Love In (and Theorists Of Literary Criticism Can Even Be Content-free In It), But It Is Hopelessly Inadequate When We Have To Deal Unambiguously With Situations Of Great Intricacy, Situations Which Unavoidably Arise In Such Activities As Legislation, Arbitration, Mathematics Or Programming.

If You Want More Effective Programmers, You Will Discover That They Should Not Waste Their Time Debugging, They Should Not Introduce The Bugs To Start With.

In Passing I Draw Attention To Another English Expression Which Often Occurs In Dutch Texts: "the Real World". In Dutch - And I Am Afraid Not In Dutch Alone - Its Usage Is Almost Always A Symptom Of A Violent Anti-intellectualism.