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All this discussion remembers me of Brian Kernighan [1] mentioning that Dennis Ritchie was also a good writer (besides a good programmer). Also, Jamie Zawinski

All this discussion remembers me of Brian Kernighan [1] mentioning that Dennis Ritchie was also a good writer (besides a good programmer). Also, Jamie Zawinski (jwz), somewhere in the book Coders at Work [2], while questioned by the author, points out a feeling of mental connection between programming and writing. I am with those guys in the sense that programming is just like writing anything else. Even in the most trivial cases, you actually think (or could have done it) before putting down a word or two. And you often come back to erase and make it better. So, teaching how to program is also teach how to "build models". [1] http://youtu.be/uxtKwJZbYr0 http://youtu.be/uxtKwJZbYr0 [2] http://www.codersatwork.com/ http://www.codersatwork.com/

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Writing is much more difficult than programming. With programming, I just have to get the program to work, the computer checks my BS by not doing the right thing; I can't lie to it. With writing, I can easily delude myself and it takes extra mental effort or external review to check prose.
- lohengramm 12y ago
  You can use the computer to check whether you are doing the right thing by trying it out, but the computer will not tell you whether your program is organized in the best possible way, whether it is to be considered beautiful or not, or even, sometimes, whether it is efficient enough. To achieve all these points you really have to think, and it is just like building anything else, from texts to mechanical devices. Of course, its not abstract modeling; there is a necessary amount of technical knowledge to it, but so there is with anything else.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    You are in a dance with the computer, there is a reliable feedback loop if you want to test or do perf, there is a truth to it. But with writing, you might not get any feedback at all, or very little. Building things is quite different from communicating.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

Writing is much more difficult than programming. With programming, I just have to get the program to work, the computer checks my BS by not doing the right thing; I can't lie to it. With writing, I can easily delude myself and it takes extra mental effort or external review to check prose.

lohengramm 12y ago
You can use the computer to check whether you are doing the right thing by trying it out, but the computer will not tell you whether your program is organized in the best possible way, whether it is to be considered beautiful or not, or even, sometimes, whether it is efficient enough. To achieve all these points you really have to think, and it is just like building anything else, from texts to mechanical devices. Of course, its not abstract modeling; there is a necessary amount of technical knowledge to it, but so there is with anything else.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  You are in a dance with the computer, there is a reliable feedback loop if you want to test or do perf, there is a truth to it. But with writing, you might not get any feedback at all, or very little. Building things is quite different from communicating.