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>What do those 70 years of mathematics do for me as a software engineer?

You mean other than inventing the entire industry in which you work? It's a weird question that I have no idea how to answer for you.

What is 70+ years of computer science doing for you as a software engineer? Are you standing on the shoulder of giants; or are you inventing/re-discovering everything by yourself from first principles?

>It's the other way around. Most engineers will have no clue what you are saying.

So how do engineers understand each other if we all invent our own meta-language to speak about software design in the abstract?

Misscommunication is what happens by default unless you intentionally become part of a community and learn the meta-language. Mathematics is one such community which has existed for millenia and benefits from the network effect. It's an anti-entropy thing.

There are many parallels here to the Tower of Babel.



>What is 70+ years of computer science doing for you as a software engineer?

No, what does category theory unlock from mathematics that I can not get without it.


Nothing. You can re-invent and re-discover everything. By yourself. From first principles.

You can re-discover and re-invent all of computation, Mathematics and physics.

Heck, you don’t even need computers if you have pen and paper.

You can do absolutely everything all by yourself. All you need is infinite time.




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