The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially attractive, not only because it can economically and scientifically rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic experience much like composing poetry or music.
Interpretation
Programming is a blend of science and art, akin to poetry and music creation.
Donald Knuth emphasizes that programming is not just a technical task but also a creative pursuit. It combines economic efficiency and scientific rigor with an aesthetic aspect that mirrors artistic disciplines like poetry and music, suggesting that the beauty of programming lies in its intellectual challenge and creative expression.
In practice
In a tech conference speech about the beauty of coding.
Computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and especially because it produces objects of beauty. A programmer who subconsciously views himself as an artist will enjoy what he does and will do it better.
The hardest thing is to go to sleep at night, when there are so many urgent things needing to be done. A huge gap exists between what we know is possible with today's machines and what we have so far been able to finish.
An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
To me, it looks more or less like the hardware designers have run out of ideas and that they're trying to pass the blame for the future demise of Moore's Law to the software writers by giving us machines that work faster only on a few key benchmarks!
As we move into an era in which personal devices are seen as proxies for public needs, we run the risk that already-existing inequities will be further entrenched. Thus, with every big data set, we need to ask which people are excluded. Which places are less visible? What happens if you live in the shadow of big data sets?
Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.
Whatever they announce, they announce. They're in their honeymoon period, and anything they announce gets hype ... They will obviously branch out beyond Internet search, but I think the expectations won't live up to reality.
Technology has moved away from sharing and toward ownership. This suits software and hardware companies just fine: They create new, bloated programs that require more disk space and processing power. We buy bigger, faster computers, which then require more complex operating systems, and so on.
It's wonderful to move forward technologically, but we cannot forget that we are human beings who thrive on relationships, who thrive on interconnectivity, who thrive on sharing your feelings and emotions.
People are mobile. They move around, and anytime they want to communicate, if you tie them to the wall or the wires, you're restricting them, you're infringing on their freedom.
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