Why programming is like writing poetry -- and vice versa
I am somewhat unusual in having a degree not only in CS & Maths, but also in Poetry Studies. Yet there's more in common between poetry and programming than practitioners from either side usually recognise. For example: I'm wrestling with some problem. I'm not completely sure how to characterise it, or what the solution is. I might have a good first-order guess at how to tackle it, or I might not. Part of the function of writing is to firm up this first-order idea of what the right way is. I open an editor partially to let my mind run cerebral digits around the edges of the problem. I open it partially for the pleasure of writing, of crafting something that might work, that might be the best I've done yet. While I write, I think precisely and painstakingly about the power of words I use, and the higher-level constructions. There are many consequences to the words and the forms we choose: some obvious, some very much less so. I think hard about how each w