/tech/ - Technology

Recently started writing more specifications - the rough sort you'd see for a shed. Was rewriting software over and over again, because I would miss some critical detail that should have been caught in planning. This video was part of the impetus. Have been reading through Ong too, interesting to see a missing mnemonic system for thought which makes the maxim "to think is to write" nearly true.

"When we think we stay with our dictionaries." This one is more aspirational for me. While I love etymologies I rarely put them to work like I should when programming. Rich Hickey sort of makes his own DSL dictionary so that terms are used consistently throughout his program. Not knowing your own terms is surely a way to have weak thoughts.

"Programs are meant to be read by humans and only incidentally by machines." When I was a kid every program I wrote was literate, because I almost exclusively worked through books, and made notes. Although I never had the macro system and typography of WEB, org-mode was a close second. At some point when I started writing more independent programs this was lost. I'm intending to get back into this, even if only in comments.