It always seemed to me that a better analogy to programming, at least programming for money (is there any other kind?), is writing for and producing a magazine.
Programming and Writing
51–60 of 87 posts
Re: Programming and Writing
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Computer programs can often be structured in nearly infinite ways while accomplishing the same (or nearly the same) objective. Writing can often be organized and worded in nearly infinite ways while getting across the (or nearly the same) message. There are some pretty strong similarities. Writer's block and programmer's block correlate. EDIT: Sadly, writing has no compiler to tell me that I overlooked the word "bloc…
Sure, the goal of writing a piece of software is to have a piece of software, and the goal of writing a novel is to have a novel. That's trivial, though. When I write a piece of software, I have more concrete goals that just write a piece of software. I'll usually have a goal (a TODO app), and maybe some ideas about which features. Sure, I might not know exactly how I'll get there, and along the way I might come up w…
That's fair and I guess highlights that I wasn't thinking about exploratory writing or even fiction. It is definitely very different if you aren't starting the writing process with an end in mind.
Re: Programming and Writing
#53As someone who has done both extensively, I humbly disagree. Writing involves thinking in a much less instrumental way, in my experience. In programming, there is often a clear pre-defined task, and the only question concerns the proper means of achieving that task. Writing, on the other hand, necessarily compels something much more dynamic & non-linear at the level of composition. I'd toss this one under the categor…
> In programming, there is often a clear pre-defined task
How is this different from writing stuff? Most of the time you have some pre-defined thing you want to communicate. If you mean writing novels and not just writing memos or articles then the equivalent is coding games which is just as creative if not more than writing novels.
Re: Programming and Writing
#54There are many similitudes between writing novels and writing code, but the main difference is that it's much easier to write bad novels than bad code. Bad code doesn't work. There can be "beautiful" code that doesn't work, but it's pointless. And there are many instances of ugly, even abominable code, that does work, but... well, at least it works! It's very hard, and maybe impossible, to determine if a novel "works…
There are startups trying to quantify what "works" for novels [1]. Of course they're just scraping the barest surface of what "works" means as of yet with attempts to analyse pacing and use of different word types and how characters are described etc.
I've tested some while writing my own novel, and it was more "interesting" than useful at this point, but I might give it another shot with novel #2 to contrast and compare the two.
It'll be interesting to see how those tools evolve, though.
[1] authors.ai is one example.
Re: Programming and Writing
#55I've always thought of programs as "functional prose". The notion of software engineering may have hidden this somewhat in the past few years, but the two domains have very much in common. Including various strategies to tackle them.
(From which follows somewhat implicitely: Whenever you set up a process for shared project development, also ask yourself, would this work for a shared writing effort?)
Re: Programming and Writing
#56Another difference, that I have found, is that programming is immediately rewarding because it's verifiable. On the other hand, writing is without a feedback mechanism or a very delayed feedback or even subjective feedback, which can be painful and demotivating.
It's one of the reasons I self-published my novel. Of course it may well be it's not good enough and that it would never in a thousand years get picked up by a publisher. But I was certainly not willing to spend months or years even finding out if a publisher wanted it, when I could get it into the hands of readers myself within a few months of finishing writing.
[if you want to maximise the chance of "making it big" traditional publishers are more likely to be able to make that happen, but for my part it's a hobby first and foremost, so that wasn't really a consideration I cared about at the odds of that are extremely poor anyway]
Re: Programming and Writing
#57I just recently was noting similarities between my strategies for programming and for writing: https://www.finl.xyz/2021/04/07/looking-at-rust-is-already-b...
Re: Programming and Writing
#58There are many similitudes between writing novels and writing code, but the main difference is that it's much easier to write bad novels than bad code. Bad code doesn't work. There can be "beautiful" code that doesn't work, but it's pointless. And there are many instances of ugly, even abominable code, that does work, but... well, at least it works! It's very hard, and maybe impossible, to determine if a novel "works…
I don't really agree. "Works" is a lower bound for code, but hardly the end all and be all. There's a whole world out there of "bad but works" code.
And about as much arguing about what makes "good code" as there is about what books are good and bad.
Re: Programming and Writing
#59As someone who has done both extensively, I humbly disagree. Writing involves thinking in a much less instrumental way, in my experience. In programming, there is often a clear pre-defined task, and the only question concerns the proper means of achieving that task. Writing, on the other hand, necessarily compels something much more dynamic & non-linear at the level of composition. I'd toss this one under the categor…
Writers tend to report very different ways of working. Some plan out everything and write a huge synopsis, others sit down and write start to finish. Some iterate somewhere in between.
For my part I plan out the high level plot, and a list of scenes. At most a 2-3 pages synopsis.
Then I write start to finish. No exceptions: Scene by scene, paragraph by paragraph, without going back.
Interestingly seeing as you suggest writing is more dynamic and non-linear, that method of writing a novel - which I've used twice so far, and in-progress with the third - is a lot less dynamic and non-linear than the way I write code.
I rarely plan out at anything but the very highest levels when I write code. I sketch out components and fill in pieces of code as I need them, and stub out other things, and then I test, and then fill in some more.
I can't write that way. I find if I try to produce any kind of in-depth synopsis I just end up changing most things when writing the full scenes anyway. I need to know the details of what went before to fill in the scene I'm currently working on, so I can't work effectively on it until I've written the previous ones out fully.
Some people do write by jumping back and forth, so I'm not suggesting you're wrong for you, but that's just not how it works for me. When I revise my draft I similarly go through them beginning to end. When I get it back from the editor, I gather up the notes, decides what to listen to and what to ignore, and go through my draft linearly, beginning to end.
Re: Programming and Writing
#60Another difference, that I have found, is that programming is immediately rewarding because it's verifiable. On the other hand, writing is without a feedback mechanism or a very delayed feedback or even subjective feedback, which can be painful and demotivating.
Interesting, never thought of it like this. Personally I like the no-feeback aspect of writing because I have to find it in myself to keep on writing. Makes it much more rewarding and personal, private, not doing it for the social media likes/brain chemicals. The ultimate form of delayed gratification: never