Title: I'm currently reading "The Art of Doing Science and Engineering" by Richard Hamming. The book is based off of lectures he gave in a course by the same name. Here are a few paragraphs that I found thought provoking:<p>"I made the comparison of writing software with the act of literary writing; both seem to depend fundamentally on clear thinking. Can good programming be taught? If we look at the corresponding teaching of "creative writing" courses we find that most students of such courses do not become great writers, and most great writers in the past did not take creative writing courses! Hence it is dubious that great programmers can be trained easily.<p>Does experience help? Do bureaucrats after years of writing reports and instructions get better? I have no real data but I suspect that with time they get worse! The habitual use of "governmentese" over the years probably seeps into their writing style and makes them worse. I suspect the same for programmers! Neither years of experience nor the number of languages used is any reason for thinking that the programmer is getting better from these experiences. An examination of books on programming suggests that most of the authors are not good programmers.<p>The results I picture are not nice, but all you have to oppose it is wishful thinking - I have evidence of years and years of programming on my side."<p>What do you guys think? I disagree with his creative writing analogy because I don't think creative writing courses were taught much in the past, but otherwise I feel it's spot on.
Upvote: