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<Quote1>
Music is programming and that is why it analogizes so well to computer
geekery.
</Quote1>
FWIW, I've been a musician since age 5 (variety of instruments, plus
voice), and I found programming to be a very natural fit for me from the
start.
<Quote2>
Drummers and bass players are semi-sentient vegetables. They don't
program well. ;-)
</Quote2>
I hope I'm an exception - I went through a jazz bass phase in late high
school. :)
Kind Regards,
Joe Chiusano
Booz | Allen | Hamilton
Strategy and Technology Consultants to the World
"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" wrote:
>
> Drummers and bass players are semi-sentient vegetables. They
> don't program well. ;-)
>
> Music is programming and that is why it analogizes
> so well to computer geekery. History teaches analytical
> skills for human contexts and that analogizes well to the
> kinds of analysis one does when creating production-worthy
> systems. Lawyers know where the money is. At the end
> of the day, programming isn't that hard to learn and law
> is. One sees many 12 year old kids programming
> and few practicing law.
>
> Most of the spectacular failures of the computing
> industry involved designers so absorbed in the depths of
> set theory, turing machines, the perfect one pass
> parse, who can write the fastest algorithm, and so on
> that they forget that humans create, use and pay for
> the information. The spectacular winning technologies
> make it easier for them to do that even if it costs the
> programmer some time in machine cycles or skateboarding.
>
> Powerpoint makes it easy to produce a decent looking
> presentation. It can't make a dumb author smarter but
> it won't make a smart audience dumber. It might bore
> them but not as much as bad phrasing and a whiny or
> monotone voice.
>
> XML makes life easier for programmers and harder for
> humans. That is why it is a technology in search
> of a human audience. It made the programmers feel
> smarter and the user interface feel dumber.
>
> len
>
> From: Bob Wyman [mailto:bob@wyman.us]
>
> Claude L. Bullard wrote:
> > The best grounding, IMO, for programming if nothing
> > else is provided is symbolic logic. Otherwise,
> > history and music.
> I remember reading a research paper many years ago that
> discussed this subject. The curious thing was that they claimed that
> not all music was a good background for programming. The claim was
> that people that played woodwinds and strings ended up being better at
> coding then others. Percussionists were at the bottom of the list as
> well as some of the brass instruments (including Tuba -- which was my
> instrument...) An attempt was made in the paper to explain the
> difference. The best explanation they could come up with was based on
> the idea that the woodwinds, etc. had to deal with shorter notes and
> thus had to have a deeper appreciation of the pattern, system or
> complexity of the music than those who played instruments which
> focused on longer notes. This paper was a long time ago, so don't ask
> me for more details...
>
> Something that I've noticed over the years is that the
> programming business has a lot of ex-lawyers in it. Many of the ones
> that I've worked with have been among the best coders I've known...
>
> bob wyman
>
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