OT: hacking and painting

[Erik Hansen]

Great, mate.



----- Original Message ----
From: Ian Wood <revlist at azurevision.co.uk>
To: How to use Revolution <use-revolution at lists.runrev.com>
Sent: Monday, August 3, 2009 3:29:35 AM
Subject: OT: hacking and painting

An essay I just came across which I thought might be particularly appropriate for this list.

http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html

"If I had only looked over at the other makers, the painters or the architects, I would have realized that there was a name for what I was doing: sketching. As far as I can tell, the way they taught me to program in college was all wrong. You should figure out programs as you're writing them, just as writers and painters and architects do.

Realizing this has real implications for software design. It means that a programming language should, above all, be malleable. 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."

Sounds like a good description of Runrev to me...

Ian
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