Zen and the art of Bug Removal
We often think of programming as architecture or as engineering – the construction of complex working machines out of many small parts. Build it properly, and it doesn’t fall apart. Here’s a different view, which probably has limited validity and no useful purpose, but which I thought was interesting.
Computers can do things without any human intervention. If you power up your microprocessor and point it at a large chunk of memory containing random bytes, exciting things may happen. Your disk may whirr. Your screen may display colourful rubbish. If you’re lucky some lights on your computer might flash on and off. Or it may just stop dead. Whatever happens will probably be chaotic, unpredictable and, above all, not very useful.
Programming, then, is the art of taming this wild behaviour. Of imposing order on a system that would otherwise run wild. Of reducing the almost infinite number of possible actions to the relatively small number that are useful. Of producing order from chaos.
To pick an analogy suitable for this part of the world, you might compare it to digging irrigation channels so that you could reclaim agricultural land from a flooded plain. Programming languages provide the component parts – the ducting, the pumps, the weirs and sluice-gates – which make this process easier than simply digging with a spade. If you use higher-level programming languages, you might get complete viaducts and locks ready-made. But the natural state of the water is one of chaos. If you misuse the components or forget anything, you get bugs. One day, a high tide, combined with a westerly wind and an unfortunate usage of sluice gates, will allow the water in one channel to leak out and cause another flood.
The perfect irrigation system would use the minimum number of channels in the perfect locations with exactly enough sluices and dams to control the possible flooding situations, but no more.
The most aesthetically pleasing programs are those that provide the most complete and elegant order out of the chaos with the minimum amount of intervention from the programmer.
Enough for now – I have to go and tidy my desk…
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