Marcus -
Using a logic programming language (like Prolog) sometimes feels to me
like a dream state, sort of like Frank describes. I use logic
programming as a cognitive aide as well as a computational aide.
Asking, “How do the pieces fit together in a problem? What is
independent and what is interdependent?”
This is very well articulated and familiar. I came of age during the
"golden age" of programming languages when it seemed like there was a
new darling language every year, and sure enough many of them WERE quite
useful for the different modes of thought they
represented/supported/mediated. Snobol, APL, and Prolog were my
go-to's back in that era for different modes of thinking about a problem.
I like your analogy between declarative languages and nightmares. I
think there may be more than superficial relevance. I suspect that our
dreaming minds *are* busy churning away on a "declared" problem that we
failed to resolve proceduraly (rationally?) in our waking state.
I have very few *scary* nightmares, but I do have a lot of very tedious
semi-lucid dreams where I keep doing the same stuff over and over (and
over) on one theme or another with everywhere from painfully negative
results to at best marginally effective results... lots of 2 steps
forward, 3 steps back-and-to-one side kinds of situations.
Maybe there is a career for aging software developers as shrinks. They
could help rationalize and treat their peers’ unique (?) pathologies?
And I think tag-team shrinking might work as well as tag-team
programming. Toss the patient back and forth between two
programmer-cum-therapists with very different styles. Maybe you and
Glen could go into partnership.
- Steve
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