

Coding: It's Just Writing - bdfh42
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001184.html

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JoelSutherland
It's the same, except when it is different.

As a single example, it is often useful to repeat a point when writing to
hammer it home. Doing this in code just creates maintainability issues.

I know this wasn't the core of Jeff's point. I think his point can be more
clearly stated:

It is important to be clear first and terse second when writing and coding.

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derefr
If writing were required to be maintained, you wouldn't want to repeat
yourself there, either. (Think of wiki articles.)

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justindz
When I started getting in to coding and started focusing on refactoring, it
amused me how close that was to the process of writing poetry (at least the
way I was taught). Write it all out. Then cut some, add less, cut some more,
move some things around.

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endtwist
I think Atwood is missing the bigger picture that both writing and programming
are forms of _creating_. They are both textual, sure, but they fall better
under this bigger umbrella of design.

So I wouldn't say coding is just writing, they just both happen to involve
text.

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unalone
However, every art form (by "art" I refer loosely to anything that requires
practice to master) is judged based on its method of transmitting information.
The Elements of Style wouldn't help a painter. It absolutely would help a
programmer. It would help a screenwriter, a lyricist, a playwright.

The fact that both programming and writing deal with text mean that they have
text in common. And learning how to write is something that helps you in both
scenarios.

Coding IS just writing. However, it's writing with a different purpose than
journalism or novel-writing or poetry. Doesn't change the fact that all of
them rely on text and ONLY text as a medium.

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nihilocrat
Code is read more often than it is written, so readability counts.

No, I'm totally not language-evangelizing :)

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gruseom
Programming is writing. It's not _just_ writing. One can think of many great
writers who would have made lousy programmers.

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unalone
That's a silly argument. Programming Is _just_ writing. It is not, however,
novel-writing. Or poetry-writing. It's code-writing.

Doesn't make it not writing.

