Functional Mechanical Sympathy [video] | Hacker News Reader

Functional Mechanical Sympathy [video]

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65 pointssurprisetalk11 comments

Yep, been leveraging immutability for years now to avoid nasty race conditions on our performance-sensitive services. It's a game-changer.

Since when did optimization get called 'mechanical sympathy' wtf? I hate the term

Since 2011 according to this: https://martinfowler.com/articles/mechanical-sympathy-princi...

100% right.

Martin Fowler cited Martin Thompson of LMAX who cited Sir Jackie Stewart of Formula One

I like the term. It’s a good way to think about programs and data structures etc.

I will never have either sympathy or empathy for a machine.

Understanding and feeling for what the machine is doing. Just like fitting together metal parts, or handling a car around a corner.

It's the same "sympathy" as in "sympathetic resonance" [0]. It has nothing to do with pity or the like.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_resonance

Race driver Jackie Stewart supposedly said “You don't have to be an engineer to be a racing driver, but you do have to have mechanical sympathy.”. Makes sense, to me, the race car is probably a bit closer to the way you'd treat your horse or something, to a driver.

Anyway, that's where we get the term from.

"Probably any one of the boys from the Palace Flophouse could have made the truck run, for they were all competent practical mechanics, but Gay was an inspired mechanic. There is no term comparable to green thumbs to apply to such a mechanic, but there should be. For there are men who can look, listen, tap, make an adjustment, and a machine works. Indeed there are men near whom a car runs better. And such a one was Gay"

^one of my favorite excerpts from my one of my favorite novels, Steinbeck's /Cannery Row/

Perhaps it's more to do with Muratori-style non-pessimization

Edit: Ha! It was mentioned by name in the questions section.

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