OT: hacking and painting

[Joe Lewis Wilkins]

Ian,  a great read and much appreciated contribution. Now I better  
understand my own successes in programming as both a writer and an  
architect.

Joe Wilkins
Architect and Product Developer for GSI
<www.glsysinc.com>

On Aug 3, 2009, at 5:18 PM, Erik Hansen wrote:

> ----- 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