{"id":49,"date":"2009-08-28T14:59:35","date_gmt":"2009-08-28T14:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/?p=49"},"modified":"2023-07-14T20:22:54","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T20:22:54","slug":"programming-is-a-lot-like-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/technology\/programming-is-a-lot-like-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Programming is a lot like writing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Computer programming is a lot like writing. You use the same tools to do both (chair, computer, scraps of paper) and you have to follow a similar set of rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What sort of rules? There&#8217;s the strict rules, like syntax, grammar, and spelling. Then there&#8217;s the not-so-strict rules, like style and taste. Same idea, slightly different type of language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Your program also has to &#8220;tell a story&#8221; in the sense that it&#8217;s telling the computer what to do. The stories have varying levels of complexity, but they often involve the same basic overall structure. Both tend to re-use tried and true plot devices that change the story as it goes along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What are some differences between programming and writing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>No matter how great you think your program is, it will never be printed out on paper. (Unless you&#8217;re writing a book about programming, in which case you&#8217;re writing as well so ha!)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If nobody understand your book, it could still be a bestseller. If a computer doesn&#8217;t understand your program, nobody will buy it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Writers don&#8217;t have SCO filing patent claims on their work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Next week&#8217;s post: Driving a car into a lake is a lot like making silly analogies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Computer programming is a lot like writing. You use the same tools to do both (chair, computer, scraps of paper) and you have to follow [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","slim_seo":{"title":"Programming is a lot like writing - MrEricSir.com","description":"Computer programming is a lot like writing. You use the same tools to do both (chair, computer, scraps of paper) and you have to follow a similar set of rules."},"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","autoblue_publish_document":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[29,31,30],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-programming","tag-sco","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10555,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/10555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}