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Programming flavours

June 3rd, 2015 · Posted by Skuds in Technology · No Comments · Technology

This evening I came across a great passage in the book I am reading. The passage is about programming languages, the book isn’t. Not really anyway.

But, of course, the point of a programming language is that you don’t just read it; you write it, too. You make it do things for you. And this, I think, is where Ruby shines:

Imagine that you’re cooking. But instead of following the recipe step-by-step and hoping for the best, you can actually take ingredients in and out of the pot whenever you want. You can add salt, taste it, shake your head, and pull the salt back out. You can take a perfectly crisp crust, isolate it, and then add whatever you want to the inside. It’s no longer just a linear process ending in success or (mostly, for me) frustrating failure. Instead, it’s a loop or a curlicue or a little scribble. It’s play.

I have never thought about programming those terms before, but I really like the comparison. I don’t think I have ever seen code described in such a poetic way.

The book itself is about a bizarre book shop, and books so I feel slightly guilty reading it on a Kindle instead of on paper.

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