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From: "Mark Lundquist" <mark@rational.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 11:47:31 -0800
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Date: 2001-02-08T11:47:31-08:00
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Al Christians <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message
news:3A824CF4.940EA80E@PublicPropertySoftware.com...
> Buz Cory wrote:
> >
> > Agreed, but forcing children to read Shakespeare early makes it less
> > likely, not more, that that person will ever learn to read him with
> > understanding and enjoyment.
> >
>
> Let us return to an on-topic topic, if only as an aside:

Then I suppose we should change the subject line :-)... but I couldn't
figure out what to change it to :-)

>
> If my intent is to write code that will be not only read and performed,
> but also revered, 400 years hence, what language and style should I
> take a shot at?

Language: empirically, COBOL seems to have the most staying power.

Style: as obscure as possible.  If nobody knows what your code does or how
it works, they will be afraid to change it and it will acheive immortality.

:-) :-) :-)

>
> How is it that single authors produce the most praised literary works,
> but egoless, pair, and team-oriented approaches are favored for software
> works?

1) Time-efficiency.  Important in software development, not important in
literature.

2) Art is (arguably) a personal expression.  Programming is instrumental
(not an end in itself), and ideally the only thing "expressed" about its
author(s) is how good he/she/they are at solving the problem.  Often two
heads are better than one, as the saying goes (but n+k heads are not
necessarily better than n -- cf. Brooks, "Out Of The Tar Pit").