TITLE: Living with the Masters
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: September 05, 2012  5:24 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
I sometimes feel guilty that most of what I write here describes
connections between teaching or software development and what I
see in other parts of the world.  These connections are valuable
to me, though, and writing them down is valuable in another way.

I'm certainly not alone.  In <EM>Why Read</EM>, Mark Edmondson
argues for the value of reading great literature and trying on
the authors' view of the world.  Doing so enables us to better
understand our own view of the world,  It also gives us the raw
material out of which to change our worldview, or build a new
one, when we encounter better ideas.  In the chapter "Discipline",
Edmondson writes:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
The kind of reading that I have been describing here -- the
individual quest for what truth a work reveals -- is fit for
virtually all significant forms of creation.  We can seek vital
options in any number of places.  They may be found for this or
that individual in painting, in music, in sculpture, in the arts
of furniture making or gardening.
<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau">
   Thoreau</A>
felt he could derive a substantial wisdom by tending his bean
field.  He aspired to
<A HREF="http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/11/messages/799.html">
   "know beans"</A>.
He hoed for sustenance, as he tells us, but he also hoed in
search of
<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trope">
   tropes</A>,
comparisons between what happened in the garden and what happened
elsewhere in the world.  In his bean field, Thoreau sought ways
to turn language -- and life -- away from old stabilities.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

I hope that some of my tropes are valuable to you.

The way Edmondson writes of literature and the liberal arts
applies to the world of software in a much more direct ways too.
First, there is the research literature of computing and software
development.  One can seek truth in the work of Alan Kay, David
Ungar, Ward Cunningham, or Kent Beck.  One can find vital options
in the life's work of Robert Floyd, Peter Landin, or Alan Turing;
Herbert Simon, Marvin Minsky, or John McCarthy.  I spent much of
my time in grad school immersed in the writings and work of
<A HREF="http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~chandra/index-old.html">
   B. Chandrasekaran</A>,
which affected my view of intelligence in both humans and
machines.

Each of these people offers a particular view into a particular
part of the computing world.  Trying out their worldviews can
help us articulate our own worldviews better, and in the process
of living their truths we sometimes find important new truths
for ourselves.

We in computing need not limit ourselves to the study of research
papers and books.  As Edmondson says the individual quest for the
truth revealed in a work "is fit for virtually all significant
forms of creation".  Software is a significant form of creation,
one not available to our ancestors even sixty years ago.  Live
inside any non-trivial piece of software for a while, especially
one that has withstood the buffets of human desire over a period
of time, and you will encounter truth -- truths you find there,
and truths you create for yourself.  A few months trying on
Smalltalk and its peculiar view of the world
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2011-09.html#e2011-09-08T20_19_25.htm">
   taught me OOP</A>
and a whole lot more.
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