Joe,
I agree; programming is an art.
I am a software developer professional by profession. At one point in my
life, I wanted to be an artist and went to art school. I’ve found
that these go hand in hand.
What is little understood is that in many (most?)
cases programming solutions are NOT logical. They are gestalts taken from
a myriad of inputs, many of which are not quantitative.
People think programmers are very logical
because, when asked how they figured out a solution, the programmers say, “Well
it’s: A à B à C à D à E. Simple.” Their real thought process is an
intuitive leap – “A à E”. No steps! It’s a gestalt,
an “inspiration”, or “It just popped into my head”.
So why the disconnect? Because
when asked, the programmer reverse-engineers the process on the spot.
I.e., it is only AFTER achieving the end result that the programmer figures out
the intermediate steps. In many cases, they describe a pseudo
process only to satisfy others.
Many times I can’t really tell you
how I came to a solution. It just “felt” right.
Quick Story…
Several years ago I was in a meeting with
one of our customers from the Accounting department. Six of us programmer-types
were chatting in a meeting room while waiting for the customer. The
conversation came to “What’s your degree?” It turned out
that NONE of us had a Computer Science degree.
So we started laughing. At that
point our Accounting customer walked in and said, “What are you guys
laughing about?” We explained why. He
started laughing his head off. When he dried his eyes, he told us that
his degree was in Computer Science! J
Best regards,
Dan.
From:
amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Landry
Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2005 4:01
AM
To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: OT: Off Off Topic Re:
[amibroker] Re: I'm an artist not a coder....
Steve and Fred about wired brains:
Back in 50 and 60's, in the days before
equal opportunity laws in the US, IBM would
test all employees
with aptitude tests (DPATs). On
interview trips to colleges we administered the tests en masse to
all students
who met the interview screening,
and unless you scored in the top quintile you weren't invited for further
interview
visits. We found some music
majors scoring extremely high and after being hired also did extremely well
in programming. In fact we had
a keyboard musician who's programming skills were matched by his
ability to key in code on a CRT
console. It was visually impressive since the code just seemed to stream
across
Bottom line - this
ramble probably supports Fred's theses about programming being an
art;
and if you want a good typist find a
pianist or keyboard musician who wants a day job.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August
13, 2005 9:03 PM
Subject: Re: [amibroker]
Re: I'm an artist not a coder....
lol..true Fred...but I still think your brain has to be
"wired" in a certain
way to excel at programming
----- Original Message -----
From: Fred
To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2005 2:48 AM
Subject: [amibroker] Re: I'm an artist not a
coder....
Programming, as opposed to "coding", is
an art ...
Please note that this group is for discussion between users only.
To get support from AmiBroker please send an e-mail directly to
SUPPORT {at} amibroker.com
For other support material please check also:
http://www.amibroker.com/support.html
YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS