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Comment by rahoulb | Hacker News Reader

I always said "Python is like writing maths, ruby is like writing english"

right! and, to build on that: people who see programming as maths understand it fundamentally differently than those who see it as prose, they approach every aspect of programming differently, evaluate "quality" on entirely different metrics, etc.

in my experience, this is a major source of friction in programming teams, and deserves to be addressed more directly -- if i had it my way, i'd prefer that those who see programming as prose would be disabused of this incorrect notion, but i understand that this is my bias speaking, and not any objective truth :)

As both a writer and someone who has a degree in math, I see the segregation of prose and mathematics into fundamentally different categories as arbitrary, perhaps even incorrect. I see an artistic element to mathematics, just as much as I see a mechanical element to prose. The mechanics of the thing tell us what we can do, the art of it tells us what we want to do. Perhaps even _why we do it.

I find the strict separation of human intellectual activities into "soft" humanities and "hard" sciences kind deeply sad. I'm not claiming that writing is the same thing as performing a physics experiment, but to me, humanity is at its best when it combines both of these elements instead of keeping them apart.

I don’t mean it as a separation, it’s an emotional response to how I do things.

In fact my blog is called The Art && Science of Ruby

i fully understand and appreciate the distinctions, and equivocations, you're describing here. i also agree with you that the best "stuff" acknowledges and maximizes both left- and right-brained parameters

my point is less about these abstract concepts, and more about the perspectives that human beings have when engaging with this "stuff"

concretely -- when i'm playing a musical instrument, my brain is in a mode that is completely different than, and totally incompatible with, the mode my brain is in when i'm writing a program, or working on a math problem

it's one or the other

why's book reads to me as a "playing an instrument" perspective on a "writing a program" problem, which doesn't work for me, at all -- personally!

other people, it works, i get that

With Ruby I feel (feel being the operative word) like I’m free to get the computer to do what I want and create something that looks good and makes me happy.

But in other languages I immediately feel cramped and constrained - and the code looks ugly to my eyes.

As for correctness and quality, number one is it has to fulfil the business requirements I’m being paid for (and I’ve shipped lots of crappy code that I’m ashamed of but the clients are very happy) and secondary, I like to look back at it and see something elegant that also looks good in an editor.

Of course, the definitions of elegant and “looks good” are the real questions here.

yep! and i have almost exactly the opposite experience!

with ruby i feel (same caveats) like there is so much ambiguity that i can't build a coherent and predictable mental model of my program -- it makes me feel anxious and unsure

what you characterize as "cramped and constrained" i probably experience as "precise and unambiguous" -- it makes me feel calm and in control

no judgment from me about which of these perspectives is better or worse, i don't think there is any way to say that, just want to point out this interesting difference in perspective among practitioners

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