Hauthorn

> Another thing to think about is, what would it take for you to care less about the understanding.

Could you explain why it would be a goal to understand the system less, rather than more?

It seems harder to know if you have good tests while lowering your expertise in the system.

This is in fact not how a chess engine works. It has an evaluation function that assigns a numerical value (score) based on a number of factors (material advantage, king "safety", pawn structure etc).

These heuristics are certainly "good enough" that Stockfish is able to beat the strongest humans, but it's rarely possible for a chess engine to determine if a position results in mate.

I guess the question is whether we can write a good enough objective function that would encapsulate all the relevant attributes of "good code".

I think watchmakers have been pushing this for quite a while.

If you want more recent examples, see Richard Mille.

I think you work in different domains.

Expecting a good outcome is different from expecting to get exactly what you intended.

Formal specifications are useful in some lines of work and for some projects, less so for others.

Wicked problems would be one example where formal specs are impossible by definition.

Or maybe just implying that Meta isn't up for the task of complying with GDPR, and lack the necessary ability to comply with regulations.