[OT?] Paul Graham, "Hackers and Painters"

Chris Benson chrisb at jesmond.demon.co.uk
Tue May 6 16:08:10 CDT 2003


Hi,

I'm reading the essay http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html
as suggested by Tim Bray at
http://tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/05/05/Languages .

About a quarter of the way through, where he's talking about programming
as sketching I was thinking "YESSS! this is what I do."

"A programming language is for thinking of programs, not for expressing
programs you've already thought of. It should be a pencil, not a pen.
Static typing would be a fine idea if people actually did write programs
the way they taught me to in college. But that's not how any of the
hackers I know write programs. We need a language that lets us scribble
and smudge and smear, not a language where you have to sit with a teacup
of types balanced on your knee and make polite conversation with a
strict old aunt of a compiler.
"

So who's a sketcher and who an engineer?
-- 
Chris Benson, returning you to your regular schedule.



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