Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!think.com!mintaka!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!i2unix!inria!uucp!adams From: adams@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr (Drew Adams) Newsgroups: comp.object Subject: Re: Global program state. Message-ID: <1991Jan14.124439.13145@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr> Date: 14 Jan 91 12:44:39 GMT References: <330@coatimundi.cs.arizona.edu> <2474@motcsd.csd.mot.com> <2784e0a8.6cc8@petunia.CalPoly.EDU> <2491@motcsd.csd.mot.com> Reply-To: adams@zephir.UUCP (Drew Adams) Organization: Centre de Recherches de la CGE (Marcoussis) Lines: 31 In article <2491@motcsd.csd.mot.com> lance@motcsd.csd.mot.com (lance.norskog) writes: >jdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck) writes: > >Here's another meaty subject. Programmers are not taught to be engineers. >Programmers are taught to be poets. An engineer are trained to design >something over and over again before building it, to be sure it's >absolutely correct. What makes you think that poets don't design poems over and over again, to be sure they are absolutely correct, before publishing them? And with respect to other forms of literature, I believe that poets are at least as concerned as other writers with finding `le mot juste', and generally more so. The criteria for determining the appropriateness of different words, phrases and other constructions is different in these different disciplines (programming, specifying, writing fiction, writing non-fiction prose, writing poetry), but in all of them the search for appropriate forms is important. I also believe that it would be an error to assume that all of a poet's criteria for determining such appropriateness are based on subjective intuition. Programs are not poems, but I'm not so sure that training in critically reading and writing poetry would hinder, rather than help, a programmer to develop good programming skills. -- Drew ADAMS: adams@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr Tel. +33 (1) 64.49.11.54 ALCATEL ALSTHOM Recherche, Route de Nozay, 91460 MARCOUSSIS, FRANCE