Looking Back to the Future

During the short history of Computer Science and Software Engineering, there have been proposed many development methods or paradigms: such as structured design, object orientation, etc, etc. The same situation will be found when we look into also short history of formal development methods.It looks like people are following the same pattern of evolution of human thinking in other fields.

About a decade ago, I noticed the similarity of conceptual framework of Confucian philosophy and those of software engineering: for example, similarity between Confucian theory of rectification of names and the hierarchical mode of thinking in object orientation. Since then, I have surveyed the history of Confucianism and found a young philosopher in early 18th century in Japan: Mr. Nakamoto Tominaga. His observation about important role of Add-on principle in the evolution process of philosophy seems very useful when we consider and evaluate practical value of various software development paradigms including formal methods. According to a classic metaphor in poetry, time flows in the direction of from future to past. So, if we want to think about our future, at first we should look back into the past.