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EssaysSpecifications change while a program is being written, and this is not only inevitable, but desirable. The word "essay" comes from the French verb "essayer", which means "to try". An essay, in the original sense, is something you write to try to figure something out. This happens in software too. I think some of the best programs were essays, in the sense that the authors didn't know when they started exactly what they were trying to write. Lisp hackers already know about the value of being flexible with data structures. We tend to write the first version of a program so that it does everything with lists. These initial versions can be so shockingly inefficient that it takes a conscious effort not to think about what they're doing, just as, for me at least, eating a steak requires a conscious effort not to think where it came from. What programmers in a hundred years will be looking for, most of all, is a language where you can throw together an unbelievably inefficient version 1 of a program with the least possible effort ...» |
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