On 1/3/08, douglas edric stanley <destanley_at_mac.com> wrote:
> text-based programming has very little to do with linguistics.
programming languages are called that because they share *some*
properties with natural languages: they exist to create and
communicate meaning. they indeed would be uninteresting subjects to a
natural linguistics scholar, but that's why programming linguistics
exists.
languages don't exist to write literature, but are used by artists to
do that nevertheless. using natural language to tell stories that
never happened, to envoke emotions and sketch landscapes was a sort of
hackery - misusing tool that was used to communicate about reality -
but eventually these new uses transformed the language and the mind of
its users.
code doesn't exist to be beautiful, but often nevertheless is - like
landscapes or faces [*]. to appreciate it though you've got to
understand what it's doing and often - guess why it is written the way
it is. but i guess understanding alone is not enough for appreciation
- you've got to respect the medium to see beautiful code.
[*] from evolutionary point of view one of important goals of the face
is to be attractive. using beauty for art is another hack that artists
perform. beauty of code helps it survive (as obfuscated c code contest
shows - code that from enginering point of view shouldn't exist gets
archived and mirrored on
http://www.ioccc.org/ due to its perceived
beauty) wether this beauty is artificial (intended) or natural.
Understanding and cultivating that what makes code beautiful is what
"text-based" coding artforms are about.
--
cheers,
artm
http://lab.v2.nl/
Received on Fri Jan 04 2008 - 09:37:28 GMT