<p>i feel a lot of the same instincts are behind both of those wants. </p>
<p>and there are similarities beyond that … like the outcomes of both are heavily intelligence-dependent (it shocks me to the extent which i’ve found this out to be true…)</p>
<p>and the genres and even be cautiously equated, like fiction writing would be analogous to game design, while most the esteemed and respected novels could be compared to ubiquitous software… </p>
<p>While one may write a program or design a game, one can also compose a symphony or direct a movie.</p>
<p>The underlining ideas are similar, developing a concept into something physical, but the parts that are used are completely different. Composers have various instruments at their disposal, programmers have computer languages and technology, and writers have characters, plot, etc.</p>
<p>I believe that the statement would be considered ignorant to the process involved in writing or programming.</p>
<p>This is interesting, but I think it really depends on the type of programming or writing. Most of the programming in my classes so far has been very mathematical, and most of the writing I’ve done has been very mechanical and uninteresting, but that’s just a consequence of the educational systems I’ve been in. They both involve organization of ideas and planning, but from my limited knowledge I feel that most of the skills involved are different. Also, to me writing takes more work, so I don’t think it’s a lazier version.</p>
<p>writing is HARD. it just seems easy to non-writers. I used to think it was easy too.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about programming, but the two seem very different. they both involve innovation, but programming seems more mathematical in the sense that you use a predefined system (vocabulary wise, that is). in terms of grammar, both languages are normally predefined. however, there are exceptions, such as certain poetry or prose and certain languages for artificial intelligence (which is how they build robots which can learn).</p>
<p>wow. I just realized they’re the same thing o.0 who knew? both try to convey a message through the structure of the system and vocabulary. the only difference is that you have to know them in different languages.</p>
<p>hmm i had to leave when i was typing the thread…</p>
<p>good point about both involving planning! planning is no doubt * hard*, and certainly part of what makes programming/writing challenging for humans.</p>
<p>yeah, i don’t think the action of writing is less lazy than the action of programming, just the desire of wanting to be one is. I would guess that an excellent programmer is usually an excellent writer too (or that they could be one, just as an excellent writer could be a good programmer), although i acknowledge it’s possible to have more inclinations to one than the other (and certainly focusing on one only makes the disparity in your skill between them greater…)</p>
<p>i was thinking it’s lazier in the sense that you don’t really have to expose yourself to writing (it’s exposed to you from when your very young) while with programming you do; so if a high schooler wants to be a programmer than i would think they put more effort into exposing themselves to different things, while the high schooler who wants to be a writer maybe hasn’t.if programming was taught to kids just like writing was then i wouldn’t really see it as being less lazy because kids would be exposed to each.</p>
<p>===</p>
<p>hey stressedout, yeah, i do think they are equally hard, or trying to say which one is harder would be rather pointless…</p>
<p>in my opinion what makes them hard is that they are intelligence-intensive - unlike where being a super intelligent police officer will only get you diminishing returns for increased intelligence, that’s not really true for writing or programming…</p>
<p>So the Best code and Best writing ends up being naturally kind of incredible to people, while the Best police work might not be… (i guess you should replace Best with ‘most intelligent’ on second thought…)</p>
<p>well, i think that’s a 6/10 analogy anyway for why we think of them as hard and other things as not as hard.</p>
<p>I know this forum is for high school kids but I’ve been a writer for almost 30 years, so I thought I’d speak up.</p>
<p>It seems very different people end up becoming programmers or writers. Both creative, but I’ve never met someone who excelled at both.</p>
<p>Now of course I’m talking about creative writing, such as what I do. I’m a copywriter (I write marketing copy). And it’s very hard. The biggest challenge is to spend countless hours trying to create and ad or web copy that sounds like it was effortless. If you do it right, it looks easy. But it isn’t.</p>
<p>to offer a counterexample to excellent writers excellent good programers: there is a very intelligent Artificial Intelligence researcher who is also the author of the highly regarded and momentously creative Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (the most popular harry potter fan-fiction on the internet as measured by number of reviews). </p>
<p>but yeah i am completely with you about the action of writing and programming having the potential to be very hard.</p>
<p>I find this thread very interesting. For the longest time, I wanted to be a writer/journalist, but now I really like programming and I want a career in computer science. I think it’s definitely possible to be good at both. My strongest (and favorite) subject in school has always been and still is English, but in the two years that I’ve taken computer science, I’ve gotten good grades and really like it. People always say that computer science is closely related to math, and therefore is the opposite of a liberal arts subject like English, but I tend to see programming as a language, and I honestly write programs to do math problems for me because I can’t do them myself. I also think both writing and programming can be very challenging in their own ways. Typically I find that writing is more artistic, whereas programming uses more logical problem solving, but this also depends on the genre of writing. Writing an argumentative paper can be just as logical as writing a computer program.</p>
<p>No problem! I really like both, but then I decided that I spent so much of my middle school/high school learning how to write (my school puts a large emphasis on writing), that I might as well go to college to learn more about programming and other computer related stuff. The other thing was that my parents were all concerned about job security and stuff like that (I guess programming pays more?). :)</p>
<p>Very untrue! I am an author. Also, I used to be very good at programming back when I enjoyed it. Slowly, but surely, programming became the lazy version of writing for me just because its so mechanical, without any creativity. Writing affords you endless possibilities.</p>
<p>I think a distinction should be made between “programming” and “computer science”.</p>
<p>For example, I don’t think there is a computer scientist on the planet who doesn’t enjoy and/or excel at mathematical problem solving, mostly because the boundary between computer science and discrete mathematics is blurry.</p>
<p>However, the OP raised a more valid discussion comparing “programming” to writing. While there are some similarities between the two, I feel that usually when you are programming something you have to deal with many more constraints than a writer has to, making it somewhat more mechanical and perhaps a bit less creative. Although I’m sure many programmers would disagree with this.</p>
<p>If we’re talking about programming by itself (as in crunching out the code), then I would have to agree that it is pretty mechanical. If though, you look at the process of writing software from start to finish, it becomes much more creative. Coming up with an idea for a program, and then figuring out how to create that program in a way that appeals to the average user does take creativity. I think a similar concept applies to writing. If you’re simply trying to figure out how to effectively get a point across through writing, I’d say that is far less creative than the entire process of, say, writing a novel. I think that writing to get a point across is more or less equivalent to coding to get the program to work, and that writing using rhetoric and new ideas is comparable to designing an entire program.</p>