Programming as Theory Building (1985)
Summary
Peter Naur's 'Programming as Theory Building' reframes programming as the construction of a theory about a system's behavior rather than merely writing sequences of instructions. The work argues that software is validated through the underlying model of the domain and its usage, not solely by formal correctness, and emphasizes documentation and iterative theory refinement as core practices. This perspective challenge traditional algorithm-centric views and has implications for how we model, document, and evolve software systems.