"My current theory is that programming is quite literally writing."
I think he's right.<p>In college, my CS 2 class was taught by a professor very different than the rest of the teachers there. He wanted all of your programming assignments on paper[1]. Then, you'd get it back with every possible bug marked in your program, and he very rarely missed any[2].<p>That was the first time in college I thought "I really need to learn how to do that!"<p>I went to a state school, so maybe all you guys with your degrees from fancy schools wouldn't be that impressed, but the difference between this professor and the rest there was gigantic. (He retired that year in a round of state-wide budget cuts, so that's the last class I had him.)<p>[1] A lot of the other teachers wanted you to hand in binaries so they can see it run. Sometimes with the code, sometimes not.<p>[2] I actually don't know of any case where he did, but I'm not saying "never."