Corners Solutions

My friend Ken is a computer programmer.   It was he who remarked that you start with what you learned in program class and spend the rest of your life coping with corners solutions.  As in:

[A] corner solution is a solution to a minimization or maximization problem where the non-corner solution is infeasible, that is, not in the domain. Instead, the solution is a corner solution on an axis where either x or y is equal to zero.

Link. Um, got it, I think. But them here I am listening to my friend Katy who is an accountant; she's telling me how you learn the rule book and then kludge and fudge. Accounting?  Computer programming?  If any fields are rule-bound, you'd think it would be these.  But  it occurred to me--could it be all of life is coping with corner solutions: start with the rules and then spend your life figuring out how to operate when the ruoes don't work?