The article dismisses the criticism against COBOL with an argument akin to "mathematicians use those funny symbols because they like to feel superior to everybody else."
For me, what is most important on the subject is that, even if we can't differentiate from one interpretation to another experimentally (yet), it doesn't mean they are all equally correct. Specifically in connection with general relativity, which is an open issue, the exploration of alternative interpretations of QM may lead to actual experiments differentiating one interpretation from another, effectively tuning it into a theory.
It seems that the most important conclusion of the article is that using lambdas is more error prone than using iterators. What begs the question: how many compiler errors were caused by the actual lambadas, and how many were caused by the declaration of a `std::function` variable, as induced by the authors (that besides unnecessary, is somewhat of a bad style)?
That is why I believe society is not getting what it is paying for in physics and mathematics. Too much of the funds invested in physics knowledge is from taxpayers money, and all the knowledge produced is useless if we can't get it back and, with due dedication, understand it. I always felt most of the modern physics knowledge is completely inaccessible to me.
The latest physics book I could read and understand was one by Einstein himself, "Relativity: The Special and General Theory", which is 100 years old.
When I tackled to learn quantum mechanics, I couldn't find good accessible (cost-wise) material, and the supposedly good book appointed by a physicist friend of mine cost more than $100 on Amazon (which is about 1/3 of the minimum wage of where country I live). I end up buying the Indian print of the book much cheaper. But there was no chance I could read it at the time, because of my lack of calculus basis, what made me watch the entire Udacity course on differential equations.
Thanks to that, I had the bare minimum to be accepted in a PhD program on mechanical engineering (I am MSc on Computer Science) to work on computational fluid dynamics. Now, halfway through an engineering PhD, I believe am (more) able to tackle the QM book (look all that took me!)
That is why I deeply value the effort of Udacity, Coursera, Khan Academy and such, because without real efforts to bring actual knowledge to public, in an accessible way (both cost and didactic-wise), modern physics and mathematics are a waste of money on private clubs.
Just because you don't understand modern physics does not make it useless. Do you understand how nuclear magnetic resonance works? It's a good thing your MRI machine will still work regardless of your understanding. Do you think most people have any idea how transistors store a state value? These examples, along with countless other discoveries made by physicists, should make it pretty clear that your understanding of physics (and mathematics) in no way affects its usefulness or value.
The reason for pursuing physics is not to bestow new information on the general population, that's a completely different area called physics education.
