41–45 of 45 posts
I totally agree that programming is an art, but the art lies in the result, not in the "coding style". Who cares how Michelangelo held his brush or his chisel; what matters is what he made.
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Donald Knuth makes a much more compelling argument. [1] [1] - http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1290000/1283929/a1974-knuth....
I'm quite happy as a craftsman myself. The problem is the many and diverse meanings of the word "art". At the start of Knuth's speech he quotes some ACM worthy as saying that programming needs to transition from an art to a disciplined science. Here, "art" is used to mean something that involves guesswork and holding one's finger in the air. In the title of TAOCP, on the other hand, Knuth seems to be using the word t…
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I think they is nice alternative
Not only is they the obvious alternative, it's always been perfectly good English and has been traced back to long before generic he was introduced—by Latinists who wanted to make English more proper in I forget which century. Now that generic he is rightly getting dumped, the natural solution that existed all along—singular they —is making a comeback. It's a lot better than stilted fabrications like "he or she", "s/…
I agree that the singular "they" is superior.
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Not only is they the obvious alternative, it's always been perfectly good English and has been traced back to long before generic he was introduced—by Latinists who wanted to make English more proper in I forget which century. Now that generic he is rightly getting dumped, the natural solution that existed all along—singular they —is making a comeback. It's a lot better than stilted fabrications like "he or she", "s/…
As a card carrying wielder of the ostentatious "she", let me just note that I use it as much for my own benefit as for the benefit of people who read me; specifically: I catch myself writing "he", and correct to "she". Over time, I train myself not to default to "he" so much. I agree that the singular "they" is superior.
>> I wonder if sometimes all those books actually help you develop an efficient coding practice or are they just some sort of distraction towards your creativity. That. I'd even go a bit further and say they actually hinder your creativity: can you even think of heroic fantasy without falling back into Tolkien's imagination?
If you think creativity is hindered by rules and best practices, you're a beginner and likely will produce chaotic and derivative crap. You have to know and understand the rules before you can break them in a meaningful way.