Indeed, writing for the poor sod who's going to maintain your code years after you moved on is much more difficult than writing code for the machine. After all, the compiler and test programs will tell you whether your code is (sufficiently) correct, but there's no feedback from the aforementioned maintainer of your code. If you can write code which compiles and passes the test suite first try, then kudos to you. Most of us can't and need the occasional hint from the compiler and edit our code 'til it passes. Unfortunately, there's no automated check whether the variable, class or function names are sensible and whether the comments match the code ...
I don't know if we are supposed to interpret the title as a joke or what. But most of the article is correct.
But obviously the prose-ish writing part is less than half of the task. It is not trivial to create useful computer programs (regardless of maintainability).
But one thing I would like to point out here is the extreme contrast in attitudes towards computer programs versus mathematical descriptions.
I have always felt that although the nature of math notation has historically made sense, the extreme level of obfuscation is a stark contrast to well-written code.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 27.3 ms ] threadBut obviously the prose-ish writing part is less than half of the task. It is not trivial to create useful computer programs (regardless of maintainability).
But one thing I would like to point out here is the extreme contrast in attitudes towards computer programs versus mathematical descriptions.
I have always felt that although the nature of math notation has historically made sense, the extreme level of obfuscation is a stark contrast to well-written code.