PsyPhilProg

GOTO Berlin 2017

Philosophy: ancient Greek for "love of wisdom", philosophy is the study of the general and fundamental nature of reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind and language. Psychology: the study of mind and behavior. Programming: ancient Latin for "please God let it compile this time".

Three distinctly different subjects, yet each deals with fundamentally the same thing: the mind, how we (or others with whom we interact) think, act, behave, and engage. Most of the time, programmers (and philosophers and psychologists) don't really think of these three things as being similar or alike, but given that all three work closely with the mind, mental models, and the ways in which we perceive and process information, it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that there's a surprising amount of overlap.

But it does come as a surprise to most developers. And in this presentation, we're going to uncover some of those surprises, learn a little about psychology, play amateur philosopher, contemplate the nature of mind and logic and the universe...

...and become better developers as a result.