Open answers to a reader's letter.
Learnable Programming
Here's a trick question: How do we get people to understand programming?
The End of Programming as We Know It
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The two worlds of programming: why developers who make the same observations about LLMs come to opposite conclusions
Writing at the end of the world, from Hveragerði, Iceland
Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years
The conclusion is that either people are in a big rush to learn about programming, or that programming is somehow fabulously easier to learn than anything else. Felleisen et al. give a nod to this trend in their book How to Design Programs, when they say "Bad programming is easy. Idiots can learn it in 21 days, even if they are dummies." The Abtruse Goose comic also had their take.
How To Think Like A Programmer
Knuth: Literate Programming
This book is the first in a series of eight volumes that contain archival forms of my published papers, together with new material.
Learning To Write Software… Is Hard - Zicklag's Leaflets
But it's also good — Musings about the last year of Roomy development, and more.
Compiling knowledge, not retrieving it: a hands-on deep dive into llm-wiki-compiler
The thesis of this piece is simple and uncomfortable: the problem of making an LLM “remember” what you’ve read isn’t solved with more…
The Return of Language-Oriented Programming | Middle of Nowhere
I’ve been wondering what LLMs mean for language design and implementation. Some believe that, because language models are obviously trained on existing content, they are inherently less capable of assisting users with new programming languages. Intuitively this makes sense. However:
A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design
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Hey, Computer Scientists! Stop Hating on the Humanities
Opinion: Computer science departments need to teach coders more than just how to code.
Its Time for a New Programming Language
Today, when compared to any other point in programming history, we find ourselves spoiled for choice when it comes to programming…
21 Lessons From 14 Years at Google
Lessons learned from 14 years of engineering at Google, focusing on what truly matters beyond just writing great code.
Programming as Theory Building: Why Senior Developers Are More Valuable Than Ever
Peter Naur's 1985 theory of programming explains why experience matters more in the age of AI-generated code
