April 01, 2004
Language, Poetry, and Programming
In an interesting bit of blog synchronicity, 2blowhards feature a post today about how language shapes our thoughts and perceptions of the world while God of the Machine compares poetry and programming. How are these related? Other than the fact that they're both discussing language, they both focus on the constraints inherent in languages, be they human or computer, and wonder about the differences and similarities between them.
See also this post.
...this description by the US computer scientist Frederick Brooks: "The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible ... so readily capable of realising grand conceptual structures."
Read the whole thing
Interesting post. Thanks. I think the distinction the author makes between the rote, technical details of programming and the more abstract concepts and structures is somewhat misleading though. This is another level on which poetry and coding intersect. You must master the technical details (syntax, library functions, meter, sounds, etc) before you can build up a strong poem or program. So, while the attention to mundane details is certainly different from the "airy-fairy" abstractions, you cannot successfully have the latter without the former.
Actually, he says that learning technicalities is the basis for abstraction:
...Indian software aptitude rests on both the emphasis on learning by rote in Indian schools, and a facility and reverence for abstract thought. These biases of Indian education are usually considered mutually exclusive in the west, where a capacity for abstraction is associated with creativity. In India, learning by rote is seen by most conventional teachers as essential grounding for speculation.
An educational tradition that spans learning by heart and exalting excellence in higher mathematics is just right for software.
Hmm.. you're right. On rereading I was reacting to a part that's in block quotes. So, no disagreement and sadly, no debate. :)
Patience. Just wait for those laywer-poets to discover someone attempted to step on their turf - pleanty of debate ahead...
Hehehe... the lawyer-poets must be slain! Coder-poets are the avant-garde. We shall revolutionize literature and technology simultaneously!