Bob La Quey wrote:
On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 5:42 AM, Todd Walton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 2:34 PM, Bob La Quey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Agreed. Let's try and figure out what programming is,
> and what problem it is trying to solve. I would be
> satisfied with a decent statement of that.
Translating? Making human wants known to the machine. Successfully
writing out what you want the machine to do, in the machine's
language. So, programming is inherently functional. We don't program
computers to tell them we love them or just to say, "I had a good
day". We program to make something happen. Programming is action.
Though I suppose sometimes, when we program, we're just stating facts.
But always facts relevant to what we're about to tell the computer to
do.
So... programming is telling a machine what to do? Seems pretty
straightforward.
-todd
If it is so straight forward then why is it so hard to do?
I think it is because we do not know how to do it well.
Which goes back to the fact that despite your statement
do not know what it is we are trying to do or how to do it.
Well, the difficulty makes a lot more sense if you regard programming as
"teaching" rather than engineering or science.
Teaching well is hard. Why should programming be any different?
-a
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