Programming
as Poetry
/***********************************************************/ main() { For centuries the separation between arts and science has been generally sacrosanct. Ideologically distinct stereotypes have evolved to ensure the two camps are not confused. The scientist is left brain, neat, tidy, thorough, patriotic, sane and logical. The hair is short; the demeanour, brisk. The artist is passionate, intense, inspired, emotional, non-linear, revolutionary and often insane. The hair is eccentric; the attitude, wild. In actuality, these dichotomies dissolve under casual scrutiny. It has been assumed that disciplines such as programming are cold, rigid, seriously analytical and antithetical to the symbolic, ambiguous, poignant, often excessive realms of poetry. To some degree this is true: there are predominant traits to each discipline. Yet poetry and programming share more than strong affinities. Each is language-based, obsessed with conciseness, consistently evolving, modelled on consciousness, and inscrutable to the uninitiated ( think of James Joyce reading C++ ). Each uses language in ways that involve leaps and circular paths; each requires an arduous concentration that ultimately relies upon reasoning which invokes intuition; and each is closely related by a shared goal of precise communication of complex realities. But in the contemporary world, the number of human languages is decreasing, while programming language are proliferating. This shift in the balance, for those humans whose capabilities draw them toward language-based play, is creating a migration toward the vivid daunting hyper-entropic evolutionary fields of creating computer code. Human poems are for emails or listservs; computer poems are for the compiler and CPU. Integrating ethical imagination into code, a new generation of programmer-poets are implementing hybrid forms that move beyond ancient dichotomies. CONTINUE>>> |
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Ada Lovelace |
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