On Mar 3, 2010, at 10:48 AM, Andrey Fedorov wrote: > I think I understand exactly what you mean, so let me try to restate in > rigorously: you want to include attributes of a given programmer in our > definition of "complexity". If we do this, and we consider the "complexity of > code" and "size of code" in the eyes of today's "average software engineer", > I concede that recursion is more complex than iteration (and "narrative > code"). This is simply because of today's fashions. Those aside, I haven't > seen any evidence that our minds prefer one metaphor over another.
I think I understand what you're striving for, but if you remove the human who is trying to understand a thing, does the thing have any "complexity" in a meaningful sense? That said, my argument sounds suspiciously like: "if a tree falls in a forest with no one around, does it make a sound?" - and of course the answer to that is yes as it doesn't require a human to hear the sound for the sound to exist. So I think what you're saying is, it doesn't (or may not) require a human to be understanding a thing for there to be complexity in the thing. Complexity feels to me like a very relative term and as such is doomed to be defined in terms of other things. Perhaps it is just the wrong name for the property you seek to measure. Entropy, perhaps? l8r Sean _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list [email protected] http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
