BartlebyScrivener wrote: > QOTW > > "Programming is not just creating strings of instructions for a > computer to execute. It's also 'literary' in that you are trying to > communicate a program structure to other humans reading the code." Paul > Rubin
I take it you've never heard of Donald Knuth or literate programming: "The main idea is to regard a program as a communication to human beings rather than as a set of instructions to a computer." "So you need somebody who's not afraid to write an essay, as well as not afraid to write a computer program. They work together perfectly, but you have to be able to communicate to the computer, and you have to be able to communicate to the human being, and if you don't do both, then you can't expect your program to be as successful. Literate programming is just the best way I know to do both at the same time." "My schtick is to promote the idea that humans, not computers, read programs.... I ask programmers to think of themselves as writers, teachers, expositors. When you're programming, the very act of trying to explain it to another human being forces you to get more clarity. And then later on, you can maintain, modify, and port your programs to other platforms much more easily. Even if your only audience is yourself, everything gets better." http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/ http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/lp.html -- Edward Elliott UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) complangpython at eddeye dot net -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
