[Fsfe-ie] Patents letter, V4

Niall O'Higgins niallo at netsoc.ucd.ie
Wed Jan 26 00:30:00 CET 2005


On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 08:31:47PM +0000, Glenn Strong wrote:
> > It'd be better to compare programming to writing a novel, a more
> > familiar concept.
> 
> Yeah, I thought about that but I wondered how it would sound to a
> non-programmer. Perhaps a point could be made distinguishing
> commercial programming from hacking for fun and likening it to the
> distinction between commercial writing and, say, novel writing or
> poetry but I wasn't sure it would actually make the paragraph more
> coherent. Give it a go, though!

Paul Graham does a good job comparing programming with art creation in his
essay "Hackers & Painters". He's pretty articulate, it might be a nice
source of nice analogies and metaphors.

For those who haven't read it:
http://www.paulgraham.com/hackpaint.html



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