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VIEW XXXXXX.PDS.JCLLIB(COMFORT) - 01.00 Columns 00001 00072
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000001 Golob, Sam
000002 From: Dave Cole <dbcole@CFW.COM>
000003 Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 8:41 AM
000004 Subject: OT: A programmer's Life Story
000005
000006
000007
000008 THE COMFORT OF PERFECT LOGIC?
000009
000010 Comforting? Not at all.
000011 Satisfying? To a point.
000012
000013 I have worked with machines it seems all my life. I like the
000014 machines, and what they have become in my lifetime. I have excelled
000015 in my craft. I have built abstract creations of such hidden beauty,
000016 works of art as creative as any you might see. An art, though, that
000017 no one will see. An art that can be seen only by the mind's eye.
000018 Impossible for most. Too difficult for those few who can. People
000019 with years of experience might have the vocabulary and language
000020 necessary to understand, necessary to comprehend. But probably not
000021 the patience or the interest. They have their own castles to build.
000022
000023 There is no color nor taste in it. No sound to hear, no
000024 object to touch. There is nothing physical or material. There is
000025 only the abstraction of concept, coded into thousands upon
000026 thousands of instructions-to-the-machine. Implemented, written,
000027 incorporated, coded, yet remaining abstract. Visualizable, but not
000028 picturable. Hidden deep within the internals of digital systems.
000029
000030 Further up, layers upon layers away from this hidden beauty,
000031 there is the final result. The display the user can see. The
000032 output that he can touch and feel with his own mind. A good and
000033 useful device in and of itself. But the concepts that make it
000034 work? forever hidden in an unlit world of "internals".
000035
000036 When I code, I think with extreme intensity and focus. When I
000037 stop, I am both wired and exhausted. Decompression takes time.
000038
000039 When I code, my mind swims and flows in a world of
000040 abstractions. There are no words. Only processes coming together,
000041 then spawning apart again. A huge spaghetti-maze of logic paths
000042 flowing, splitting, diverging, merging. Each one needing to find
000043 its beginning, needing to seek its end. "What about this?" "What
000044 if that?" "What will happen when?" "Oh shit! I forgot about THAT!"
000045 These are the constant urges that drive the coding process. Each
000046 of them giving rise to a branching of the logic paths. Each one
000047 giving creation to the abstraction needed to resolve its question.
000048 Each one remaining a flaw until resolved and merged back into the
000049 overall flow of the program.
000050
000051 Occasionally, once in awhile, the solution to a path will be
000052 utterly new, the abstraction will be totally beautiful. Something
000053 to be proud of. Something to be satisfied with. Something I cannot
000054 show or even explain to the people I love. Something that I am
000055 forced to keep ... private.
000056
000057 When I code, my mind swims and flows in a world of
000058 abstractions. There are no words. "What are you doing?", someone
000059 will ask. I cannot answer. The cost is too high. There are no
000060 words at hand. Only the mental flows of forms and processes.
000061 "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!", someone insists. I have to stop. Let it
000062 all settle into ... stillness. Then maybe I can find the words,
000063 but now the process is gone. That is the cost.
000064
000065 "What about this?" "What if that?" "What will happen when?"
000066 "Oh shit! I forgot about THAT!" But then suddenly comes the
000067 answer: "It is done!" Suddenly, there is stillness. There is that
000068 perfect moment when you just know, in an inescapable way, there
000069 are no questions remaining. All the paths have been connected. All
000070 the answers have been coded.
000071
000072 There is stillness. It is done.
000073
000074 You asked what I do. This is what I do. There is
000075 satisfaction, but no comfort.
000076
000077 = = =
000078
000079 David Cole
000080 In the 55th year of my life,
000081 36 of which have been devoted to programming,
000082 24 of which have been devoted to XDC.
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