Sokrates – a lightweight (yet powerful) software documentation and analysis tool

41 points by nilsandrey 3 years ago | 10 comments
  • clouddrover 3 years ago
    Socrates didn't believe in documenting anything. He thought the written word made people forgetful.

    In Plato's Phaedrus (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1636) Socrates says, "But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."

    Socrates thought the written word was less useful than the spoken word because you can't ask further questions of a piece of writing and the writing can be misunderstood without the author to explain it further.

    He says, "I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves."

    • tremon 3 years ago
      > And the same may be said of speeches

      I'm not sure it's fair to characterize Socrates' position as "he didn't believe in documenting anything" when in truth he argues for dialogue as the best means of learning. Neither the written word nor the spoken word are of much value when the communication is one-way only.

      It seems to me he is arguing more for internalization and against rote memorization than specifically against writing.

      • clouddrover 3 years ago
        > Neither the written word nor the spoken word are of much value when the communication is one-way only.

        What, you mean like when it's documented?

      • hunterb123 3 years ago
        Ironically you're proving Socrates point by misinterpreting Plato's writing.
        • clouddrover 3 years ago
          Nope.
          • hunterb123 3 years ago
            Great retort. The point Socrates was trying to make is you cannot interrogate writing. It's a single snapshot in thinking that only tells one story.
      • towledev 3 years ago
        Let me just congratulate the author on describing a newly written library without using the word ‘modern’. Truly, you are the 1%.
        • prepend 3 years ago
          This looks really neat, but I’m too lazy to install Java to run this.

          I like the reports and stuff, but don’t like big, manual dependencies that I don’t already have.

          A fun project that I might submit is to set up a demo repo with a GitHub action that runs this and commits back to itself for GitHub pages. So others would just need to fork and specify the name of the org or projects and everything runs in the actions CI environment.

          • pabs3 3 years ago
            What kind of situation would you use Sokrates for, and to what end?