Comment by egocodedinsol
11 years ago
What an ambitious and beautiful piece!
A story like this is probably dangerous - it touches on so many ideas everyone will find something to gripe with, and it's hard to make a comprehensive and consistent story.
The last time I read something that so awesomely bridged high level abstractions and low-level implementations with a human touch was Godel, Escher, Bach (albeit with a very different feel). Well done.
Interesting, I wouldn't put this anywhere near the level of Godel, Escher, Bach.
If you've read GEB and do software development, what actually did you find interesting and beautiful in the article? I've just finished reading the whole piece and I don't think I've learned much at all. Presumably as someone who already knows programming and theoretical CS I'm not the target audience, but then I'm also surprised why this has so many upvotes here on HN.
This article is a sociology of code, not a technical manual. You absolutely could get a lot out of it.
I get the GP's point about this being reminiscent of GEB, not in the sense that it covers the same topics or is at the same 'level', but in that it describes an intangible idea by approaching it from different angles and describing that same core concept from the shadow it casts in different directions. In GEB that core concept of self-reference was tackled from multiple perspectives so that an image of this common theme emerges as you read these different views onto it. Similarly, this article tries to conjure an image of 'code' as a cultural artifact, by portraying the shapes it casts in different directions - on the people who create it, the people who have to fund it, the tools and artifacts it generates. And it does so, like GEB, with wit and intelligence.
He does mention a "golden braid forever weaving", which is reminiscent of: "Gödel, Escher, Bach. An Eternal Golden Braid"
or 'a mind forever voyaging'.