Code is Poetry?
As I was writing a BLOG entry I saw a new version of the blogging software was available. Being somewhat of a geek myself I went to look at the change list. I wanted to see if some of the things that drive me crazy have been fixed. At the bottom of the page I saw the phrase “code is poetry” Having a background in software development this comment put a smile on my face. I have worked with all types of developers. Some say “if it is working it is good, don’t change it” While there is some truth to that… changing code often introduces new defects, there is certainly some risk as well. As code may be error prone or unmaintainable, or can be made to execute more quickly (such as the latest release of SEER which writes to the database an order of magnitude faster.) But should good code be changed just to make it read better? Using SEER for Software I can see a potential of 20 to 50% of development or more just to ensure we have made anything go wrong.
Yet re-factoring old systems can sometimes product great improvements in maintainability.
I began to think of the analogy of code to electronic circuitry. Is electronics poetry? I don’t think so. It is sound (hopefully) engineering. i think the same is true for software. Code is an engineering product, not poetry.
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I think code is equal parts poetry and engineering. In support of that, many persons I know who came to software share a love of writing and verse. To my mind, programming has strong components of both textual and symbolic logic.