“In ancient times, the dream of alchemists was to mutate ordinary metals such as lead into noble metals such as gold. However, by using classic mathematics, modern physicists and chemists are much more successful in understanding and transforming matter than alchemists ever dreamt of.Modern computer scientists on the other hand are as unsuccessful as ancient alchemists in their quest to reliably turn formal specifications into code and to accurately understand the mechanics of side-effecting computation. Whereas modern alchemists, by using classic mathematics, have been extremely successful in mutating training data into pure functions…”

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Link: http://www.foocafe.org/malmoe/events/1896-alchemy-for-the-modern-computer-scientist