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I started my undergraduate studies by pursuing a double major in philosophy and mathematics. While people often remarked that these subjects were complete opposites, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Philosophy is not only linked to math and sciences – it’s their ancestor. Philosophy has had a profound impact on most scientific fields, and computer science is no exception.
A philosophy is a way of thinking that determines how we understand ourselves, the world, or the right thing to do. Much like a program, a philosophy is composed of a set of premises and principles that determine how we handle events. Whether or not we’re aware of it, there’s a philosophy driving everything we do – from the way we honor history, to the way we develop software.
Today we’ll discuss three philosophies that have influenced software development, in ways big and small.
We’ll cover:
Before our discussion, I want to address one of philosophy’s most obvious and important contributions to computer science. Namely, our earliest binary representation of data came from a branch of philosophy called logic. Specifically, Boolean logic provided the framework through which we represent data in binary digits (0s and 1s). These binary digits are called bits in computer science. Bits are our tiniest units of data, and are the building blocks through which we animate lifeless hardware into functional machines.
Boolean logic was developed by George Boole in the 1850s. A mathematician and philosopher, Boole was building upon the findings of his predecessors. The hardware to physically realize these bits came much later thanks to findings in quantum physics. Still, Boolean logic was a breakthrough that’s often credited for transitioning us into the Information Age.
From decluttering to software development, minimalism has had a widespread impact on many areas of our lives. While the term “minimalism” was first coined to describe a post-WWII Western art movement, the term found itself applied in various contexts where there was a benefit to doing more with less.
Generally, minimalist philosophies value:
Minimalism worked its way into software development in the 1970’s. In these early days of programming, developers worked to optimize programs within the constraints of limited hardware resources and budget. While our hardware capabilities and budgets have certainly grown since then, minimalism remains an influence in software design and development.
We see minimalism’s influence on many communities and technologies, including:
Minimalism in software development advocates for:
Open-source software is software that makes its source code available to the public. We owe today’s abundance of open-source software to open-source philosophy and the open-source-software movement in the 1990s.
The open-source philosophy is closely linked to the hacker ethic. Indeed, many open-source activists were hackers (a term with positive connotations in this context). Like the hacker ethic, the open-source philosophy believes software and information should be freely available to anyone who wishes to use or improve upon it.
Open-source philosophy advocates for:
The open-source-software movement was a response to the increased privatization and commercialization of software around the advent of the personal computer (PC). This privatization was a contrast to the early days of programming, when researchers and programmers openly collaborated and software was shared in the public domain. Open-source philosophy advocates for bringing source code back to the hands of the people.
We now enjoy an abundance of open-source technologies, including:
Kaizen is a Japanese business philosophy that has influenced countless industries. The term Kaizen roughly translates to “change for the better” or “continuous improvement.” Kaizen was first implemented by Japanese businesses after WWII. It became popular in the US in the 1980s.
Kaizen advocates for:
Kaizen’s incremental approach laid the groundwork for agile development methodologies, including lean development. Agile methodologies share a focus on continuous improvement, and are widely used by software development teams today.
Lean philosophy, borrowed from manufacturing (Toyota Production System), is another foundational lens. While Kaizen gives the mindset of continuous incremental improvement, Lean provides the tools: identify waste (overproduction, waiting, defects, unnecessary features), improve flow, and adopt pull-based systems (work is pulled when needed, not pushed prematurely). Kanban is a codification of the pull system applied to knowledge work.
When software teams adopt a lean philosophy, they aim to streamline delivery, shorten cycle time, reduce queue sizes, and deliver only what adds value. Lean teaches that every additional feature or code path is a potential liability if it doesn’t reduce user pain. It complements minimalism but focuses more on the flow of work and system throughput.
One of the most influential philosophies that influence software development is Agile. The Agile philosophy stems from the Agile Manifesto, created in 2001 by a group of seventeen developers. Its four values emphasize individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan.
Underneath these values are twelve principles (such as welcoming changing requirements late, frequent delivery of working software, sustainable development pace, and continuous attention to technical excellence).
The Agile philosophy reshaped software development: it treats change as inevitable, prioritizes feedback loops, encourages incremental delivery, emphasizes cross-functional teams, and views planning as adaptive rather than fixed. Many modern methodologies—Scrum, XP, Kanban—are implementations of this philosophy. Including Agile gives your readers a foundational lens through which modern software is built.
A modern philosophy that influences software development is DevOps / continuous philosophy. This philosophy views development and operations as a shared responsibility: infrastructure, deployment, monitoring, and feedback are part of the same cycle. It encourages continuous integration, continuous delivery, infrastructure as code, and fast feedback loops.
The boundary between code and runtime blurs, and teams adopt ownership of entire lifecycle. Under this lens, software is never “done”—delivering value is continuous, and failure detection and recovery are integral. DevOps philosophy pushes software teams to automate, instrument, and respond rapidly to production signals. It complements Agile and Lean by closing the loop between delivery and operation.
A program is not so different from a philosophy. They both inform how we move through the world – and in the case of programs, through the world as data. As a programmer, how you develop software can reflect your values, your purpose, and what you believe in.
Happy learning!
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