The Art of Doing Science and Engineering

I’ve seen this book highly recommended and with many positive reviews on Goodreads, but I honsetly did not find it to be as profound as some made it out to be. That is not to say that the book is uninteresting; I think there are interesting observations and useful advice, but I think it is showing its age and suffers from the author presenting opinion and experience as fact.

In the book’s defence, it is a collection of small essays meant to be read in conjunction with lectures. I think the lectures and discussions on the topics would give more nuance and at least allow to counter and work more actively with the statements made. A critical reading is adviced, as Hamming does not shy away from presenting his opinion as fact, even when he knows he is on shaky ground. For example (p. 53), Hamming argues that people can’t be taught programming since he considers programming to be like writing. Further, he thinks that experience will only make it worse, since, he thinks, bureaucrats don’t get better with experience. When making this argument about programmer skill he makes it clear that he doesn’t actually have any data, but just thinks it to be common sense. Yet in the very next paragraph, he doubles down and says that all you have to oppose it is wishful thinking — I have evidence of years and years of programming on my side. This is in a book titled The art of science and engineering.

The above is the most obvious example of terrible reasoning, but not the only. Add to this a very jumpy and uneven mix of technical content and anecdotes and I felt I was spending a lot of effort on something with little return.

The good parts were his observations on sticking with and understanding the fundamentals; questioning assumptions by understanding their origin; working on important and emergent issues.