Marco Borst at #ScalaUA - On denotational and implied semantics

Marco Borst revisits Dijkstra's claims about the software crisis and explores denotational and implied semantics in programming.

Marco Borst at #ScalaUA - On denotational and implied semantics "Sometimes we discover unpleasant truths. Whenever we do so, we are in difficulties: suppressing them is scientifically dishonest, so we must tell them, but telling them, however, will fire back on us." thus wrote E.W. Dijkstra in 1975. Seven years earlier, during a conference in 1968, he also coined the phrase Software Crisis, noting that the main challenge of the software industry, how to achieve intellectual control over the complexities of our own makings, had not yet been met. We revisit Dijkstra's claim 51 years later in this talk, which is, the audience should be warned, not your typical happy, peppy, look how smart we are, woke, functional cheerleading babble. The intent of this talk is to leave you confoundedly humble, dazed and confused. Only thereafter ... perhaps ... we can start cleaning up the mess of our own makings. Follow ScalaUA Conference on Twitter: twitter.com/@ScalaUA_Conf