Introduction
For the first post in my website, I decided to share my opinion on programming, which holds a great place in my life, and why I think its more literary than numeric; where letters hold more value than numbers.
To Compute, Assembly
If you were a computer itself, yes, numerics would hold more value than letters as digits, bits, hex, and similar values that are alien to me (nor do I have to know about them) would be your building blocs and even the language itself. But the thing is; You are not the one who computes, you are the ones who assembles. You are not dealing with very low levels, even in ASM (Assembly) while programming; instead you assemble letters and commands, in which letters gain more prominence as you go up in abstraction (higher programming languages).
Is being able to communicate the indicator of something literary?
No, as aforementioned, communicating with digits isn't something literary. I define something literary if it meets the following criteria;
- Purposefully written by an author (can be generated by a machine under supervision)
- Has a goal, aims to serve something (could be to tell a story, educate, or even, please the reader) to a biological sentient being (such as a human)
Computers aren't biological, and do not serve any information. Computers, just... compute.
This is where we begin to see programming as a form of literature; It requires to be written in a careful way, we think behind the algorithms to achieve the intended result and aim to achieve it. This is no different than an author; Writing requires algorithmic thinking to achieve the aimed result, otherwise it's not a work of literature, it's usually not even intelligible to be called anything else.
r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
Everyone, either experienced or not, knows that poems are structured in one way or another, such as in rhyme, meter, theme, assonance, just in any way.
But Looking at the poem "Grasshopper" by e.e. Cummings (starting with "r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r") we see what it appears to be an unstructured and disorganized poem, seemingly unintelligible to the reader UNLESS a course has been taken and techniques of analysis and critique has been well practiced. "UNLESS" (in capitals) is important here, because it shows us that even in literature, the unstructured is structured as it is thought on.
Therefore, as declared previously as a form of literature, Programming itself too, can (and do) have structure, such as LINUX KERNEL CODING STYLE (C) or PEP 8 (Python). There are also individual styles to each programmer, like a poet, regardless of the convention or style they utilize, and of course, there are those unconventional, avant-garde programmers and languages, also like in Literature, called Esoteric programming languages (Which interestingly host languages such as SPL (The Shakespeare Programming Language) and Wenyan (Classical Chinese as Programming Language).
Therefore
Therefore, it can be said that programming is a form of literature, purposefully written works of literature, that serve a purpose (usually far greater than initially intended, and far more open to critique and to a certain point, interpretation).