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Archive for September, 2007

The Cutting Edge of Occam’s Razor

Saturday, September 29th, 2007

When you have a number of theories about something you should always go with the simplest theory first. The maxim is called Occam’s Razor.

The web industry relevance of Occam’s Razor might not be that obvious so I’ll explain. You might be working on some code and suddenly realise there is something majorly buggy afoot – and there are a number of things that could cause it. Your options range from a total rebuild of the work you’ve already done OR you might have an idea that only requires a smaller fix ‘if you are correct’. That if is a big IF so you really don’t know which way to go. So which way do you go?

Occam’s Razor to the rescue. Its always better to try the easier solutions before you go get psycho on the huge ones. I can recall several times when I opted for the total rebuild and realised half way through that something rather easy to fix had originally been the error. Too far into it to return for the easy fix, so I wasted a whole lot of time. That’s why Occam’s Razor has a particular place among scientists (and computer scientists).

If a scientist has a number of hypotheses which could be true then the heuristic rule of thumb is to test the simpler hypotheses first. It intuitively makes sense after all. If they’re correct then there’s no need look any further.

Those middle ages Franciscan monks (William of Ockham) weren’t all that silly.

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Steven Clark Steven Clark - the stand up guy on this site

My name is Steven Clark (aka nortypig) and my passions are business, web development, photography and writing. My current CV [PDF 775KB] is available for download. Currently I'm completing my 2 final units of a post-graduate university degree of MBA (Journalism and Media Studies) at the University of Tasmania.

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The time has come for me to get more involved in upping my technical photography skills if I hope to embark on a Master of Fine Art and Design (Photography) next year. To that end my first book is the highly recommended Light Science & Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting (Third Edition) by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver and Paul Fuqua. What really differentiates this book is the comprehensive set of exercises and the detailed explanation of the underlying science of light in the real world that encompasses the reader's journey.