Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdahl!nuchat!elg
From: elg@nuchat.UUCP (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: What is CS? (Was re First languages)
Message-ID: <906@nuchat.UUCP>
Date: 8 Apr 88 07:06:08 GMT
References: <1666@ur-tut.UUCP>
Organization: Public Access - Houston, Tx
Lines: 40

From article <1666@ur-tut.UUCP>, by msir_ltd@ur-tut.UUCP:
> In article <8538@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> hugo@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Peter Su) writes:
> It occurs to me that teaching programming to those in the "creative" arts
> - writing, drama, music, and the like - might be detrimental.  Programming
> requires a certain type of thought, very right-brained, very logical,
> whereas people in these disciplines are on the other side of the brain,
> and think in a more relational, intuitive manner.  Couldn't it be that
> forced programming will change the way these people think, and therefore
> possibly hinder their skills in their chosen area?  Does anyone know of

Jerry Pournelle, in his column in Byte, has noted many times that the
same organizational skills needed to write a novel are similar to the
ones needed to write a program. For those of you who've lived under
a rock for the last 10 years, Jerry is a best-selling science fiction
writer, who learned a few things here and there after he
got a computer to use for word-processing his novels.

Programming doesn't REALLY require a certain type of thought. It
requires thought, and organizational skills. Period. In fact, one
ability of many artistic types, the ability to intuitively grasp
"the big picture", comes quite in handy for programming. There was
a survey a few years back, whose authors found it noteworthy that
many of today's best programmers are also people of above-average
language skills or artistic ability. One example that pops to mind
immediately is Richard Stallman, who has a PhD in Philosophy, of
all things....

I mentioned that programming requires thought. Unfortunately, a
large percentage of the American population is incapable of
any thought more sophisticated than "duh, I wonder where I'm gonna
go out Friday night when I get my paycheck from the (ad agency,
factory, etc.)?". Perhaps that's why you associated artistic
thinking with lack of thought. When, in fact, if you look at the
top practicioners of any art, they are thoroughly grounded in
theory, and have invested a lot of thought and pain into improving
their art and developing a unique style of their own.

-- 
Eric Lee Green   P.O. Box 92191  Lafayette, LA 70509
uunet!nuchat!elg  "I survived the Flood of '88"