@kamelit0
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Exact Science did bring us Duke Nukem Forever. Kamelito

mathematic is an exact science.
computability is an exact science.
computer science is an exact science.

Duke Nukem Forever is the result of bad management of the project.

@cdimauro

Although it may look otherwise, software developement is not exact science.

@pavlor:
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Although it may look otherwise, software developement is not exact science.

It depends on the price that you want to pay for having it.

The formal verification of a (specific) software is possible. And IS made on critical software, like the one for pacemakers, for example. But it costs an enormous amount of time and money.

That's why normally you resort to some approximation or... nothing at all ("just coding". SIGH).

But even in this case, there are consolidated good practices for software development, which help a lot for reducing the amount of bugs, and for predicting how long a project will take for delivering. Those are also beneficial for the software maintenance, upgrade, or rewrite.

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mathematic is an exact science.

Mathematics isn't a science.
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computability is an exact science.

computabilty is mathemetics, therefore not science.
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computer science is an exact science.

Computer science is possibly not science and definitly not software engineering.

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BroadBlues On Blues BroadBlues On Amiga Walker Broad

@broadblues. From the Britannica:

Mathematics: the science of structure, order, and relation that has evolved from elemental practices of counting, measuring, and describing the shapes of objects.

Computer science: the study of computers, including their design (architecture) and their uses for computations, data processing, and systems control. The field of computer science includes engineering activities such as the design of computers and of the hardware and software that make up computer systems. It also encompasses theoretical, mathematical activities, such as the design and analysis of algorithms

Algorithm: systematic procedure that produces—in a finite number of steps—the answer to a question or the solution of a problem.
[...]
the English mathematician and logician Alan Turing rigorously defined the loosely understood concept of an algorithm. Although Turing ended up proving that there must exist undecidable propositions, his description of the essential features of any general-purpose algorithm machine, or Turing machine, became the foundation of computer science. Today the issues of decidability and computability are central to the design of a computer program—a special type of algorithm.

@cdimauro
From Wikipedia:
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Software development is the process of computer programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications and frameworks involved in a software release life cycle and resulting in a software product. The term refers to a process of writing and maintaining the source code, but in a broader sense of the term it includes all that is involved between the conception of the desired software through to the final manifestation of the software, ideally in a planned and structured process.[1] Therefore, software development may include research, new development, prototyping, modification, reuse, re-engineering, maintenance, or any other activities that result in software products.[2]

Hardly an exact science.

I haven't seen or heard ssolie's actual quote, but you quoted that he said "software development isn't an exact science", which is very true.

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The unbelievable thing is that if they hadn't used an outdated component but rather scrapped their design and moved to a T1022 the software side would have been so much easier they would probably BE ready in mid 2016. As it would have the same core as X5000, probably also mostly the same GbE and SATA interface.

As the OS4 development team is what is holding up the release of the X5000, and they won't work on the tabor port until the port to the X5000 is complete, this might be accurate.

But they are probably already stock piling Tabor boards and have purchased the components.

The momentum of these processes' is too great.

With all apologies to the people at Britannica, the post that said that Mathematics is not a science is fairly correct.
It is merely a system of representation.

There are a lot of fields that fail the make the grade as science, my favorite being Psychology.

At least mathematics can follow the scientific method, Psychology postulates knowledge on unsubstantiated theories.

Mathematics has most of the features of a science, but it is actually a language.

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With all apologies to the people at Britannica, the post that said that Mathematics is not a science is fairly correct.

Yay!
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It is merely a system of representation.

Uh oh ... "merely" ?

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There are a lot of fields that fail the make the grade as science,

Fails to make the grade? Mathematics will out rank any form of science in terms of internal rigor, you can prove a theorum, you can only disprove a theory.

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my favorite being Psychology.

Hard science prejudice kicking here I think...

Ransom arcticle that covers this quite well I particularly like the subtitle

Psychology is a science even though some psychologists aren't scientists."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/under-the-influence/201308/the-psychology-the-psychology-isnt-science-argument


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At least mathematics can follow the scientific method,

No it doesn't. Maths starts from axiomatic statements and derives consequences.

Ofcourse some sciences (theoretical physics for example) attempt to use mathematics by positing axioms that enable them to predict the real world, and the scientific applies here, but in that case it's the science side applying the scientific method not the maths side.

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Psychology postulates knowledge on unsubstantiated theories.

psuodo sciencey woo exists in all fields, doesn't mean you can dimiss physics because some hippy say it's like quatum man...

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Mathematics ..., but it is actually a language.

arguable but not completely so.

Back to the original software engineering is not a science, it uses science like all forms of engineering, but there are many human aspacts involved, and other non scientific constraints, like budgets, both financial and time, erroneous of poorly worded docs that cause misunderstanding and bugs, bugs from shear accident, bugs from unexpected interactions in what is a very complex system.

Any engineer would like to write perfect code first time, in reality virually all software had bugs and most major projects seem to come in over budget and late.

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BroadBlues On Blues BroadBlues On Amiga Walker Broad

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As the OS4 development team is what is holding up the release of the X5000,

That's more than a little unfair, the guys are working as hard as they can to get it working, and as far as I know much progress has been made of late.

The AEon heroes Hyperion bad guys trope is very unhelpful, the two need to each other, and I'm sure they realise that.

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BroadBlues On Blues BroadBlues On Amiga Walker Broad

@all: I've reported some sources and statements about mathematics & computer science, which are enough IMO.

I add just a little detail. When I studied "Informatica" in Italy ("Informatica" is the translation of "Computer Science"; and it's NOT an engineering faculty, which is a different thing) to get my degree, this branch was part of the so called "Facoltà di Scienze Matematiche, Fisiche, e Naturali", which is roughly translated as "Faculty of Mathematical, Physical, and Natural Sciences". More specifically, Informatica is part of Scienze Matematiche (or, in short, Matematica).

@cdimauro

At my time "Informatica" was called "Scienze dell' informazione", so definitely a science ...

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SAM440EP-FLEX @ 733 Mhz, AmigaOS 4.1 Update 1

@Massi: correct. When I started, there was Scienze dell'Informazione. After some years the new faculty was named just Informatica, and I switched to the new organization.

Thanks for reporting this precious... information.

@cdimauro

First time we 2 actually agree on something

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SAM440EP-FLEX @ 733 Mhz, AmigaOS 4.1 Update 1

@Massi: it's time to take the champagne to celebrate.

Guys...
I think all that discussion was taking some sort of really weird behaviour...
I really think that every work have its problems...and Steve Solie answering to my question was, for sure, intending that "software development"have its problems like any other work...
Software development wasnt:

1 + 1 = 2

or I'm wrong?

Developing something was really complex and somethime things dont goes like the devs expects...so dealys was quite normal...
I really think that...how and when work was plain and straight?

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Simone"Tuxedo"Monsignori, Perugia, ITALY.

@Tuxedo: as I already reported, a software is an algorithm (a function, in mathematical terms), and you can have a formal validation of a specific code (a theorem that proves that its behavior is correct). The problem is, that such validation requires an ENORMOUS number of resources, so only a few, and limited, software have the luxury of a formal validation.

So, the 99,999999999% of software is NOT developed this way, and that's the root cause of the evil (= bugs!).

However, good practices can help here, and you can find a vast amount of literature on this argument.

So, if Solie wasn't so generic and was only talking about the more common software development cycle, he was right.

Unfortunately he talked differently, and a statement made on a formal plane generated another likewise formal rebuttal.

Man, I got another compile error. I *know* for a fact that the moon is right and I used the right amount of chicken blood, so what the hell?

@CodeSmith: you're part of the above 99,999999999% but you're more lucky, since you are sticking on the syntax domain, instead of the semantic one.

@cdimauro

sorry but...
He was obviously speaking about common way of software development...why he have to speak in theoric therms?
I really dont understand all that talking about a simple statement...

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Simone"Tuxedo"Monsignori, Perugia, ITALY.