Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14 (1971)
> Eyles and some of his fellow Consciousness IIIers regard computer programming as a fine craft that might some day be elevated to the status of an art. “It’s possible to envision a time when there are professors of the literature of computer programming. Maybe some programmers will be minor poets of the 20th Century. The trouble is that programs are written in a language there’s no audience for. It’s like Nabokov’s book about Gogol where at the end he says that if you really want to know anything about Gogol, there’s no way around it, you gotta learn Russian. It’s sort of discouraging.”<p>As I read this, I was aware that there is a steaming pile of JavaScript a single Alt-Tab away on my laptop. I think there's a profound lesson here - buried in the path between these dreams of programmers in the 70s and today's reality.<p>This was a really good read. Gave me something to think about.