The Joys of the Craft
Frederick P. Brooks, aus TheMythicalManMonth

Why is programming fun? What delights may its practioner expect as his reward?

First is the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in his mud pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own design. I think this delight must be an image of God's delight in making things, a delight shown in the distinctness and newness of each leaf and each snowflake.

Second is the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people. Deep within, we want others to use our work and to find it helpful. In this respect the programming system is not essentially different from the child's first clay pencil holder "for Daddy's office."

Third is the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles, playing out the consequences of principles built in from the beginning. The programmed computer has all the fascination of the pinball machine or the jukebox mechanism, carried to the ultimate.

Fourth is the joy of always learning, which springs from the nonrepeating nature of the task. In one way or another the problem is ever new, and its solver learns something: sometimes practical, sometimes theoretical, and sometimes both.

Finally, there is the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the Poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures.

...

Programming then is fun because it gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men.

Ist das nicht schön und direkt poetisch ausgedrückt? // P.S. Ich hab es nicht übersetzt, weil mir an anderer Stelle gesagt wurde, dass das überflüssig sei. Wenn doch jemand gerne eine Übersetzung hätte - Hinweis genügt (Es muss sich erst herausstellen, wie weit wir das Deutsch im DseWiki treiben wollen). -- HelmutLeitner

Ich denke auch, dass das eine gute Entscheidung von Dir war, hier das englische Original zu posten - es ist m.E. einfach ne Tatsache, dass bei Lyrik und auch Prosa beim Übersetzen "etwas" verloren geht... (zumindest wird "es" verändert...). Goethe sagte mal: "So viele Sprachen einer spricht, so viele Leben lebt er..." - Man könnte auch sagen in so vielen (Sprach-)Welten lebt er: und es ist gar nicht so einfach von einer "Welt" in die andere zu übersetzen... BTW: das kann man ja beinahe auch für ProgrammierSprachen gelten lassen... ;-) - FF