It would appear that over the years the activity of thinking and the
activity of typing have become integrated between my ears. When thinking
through a problem, I don't feel the need to grab a pen to start jotting
things down. I find myself instead reaching for a keyboard. There is
something about having the keyboard under my fingers that fuels my
noodling somehow. It is hard to explain.
This phenomenon has largely crept up on me unnoticed. Years ago, my
mental math gave up the ghost and a calculator became a "must-have"
rather than a nice to have. Now it appears that a keyboard and some
form of word-processor/text editor has become a "must-have" also.
Crumbs. What will my next electronic dependency be?
As I think about it now, it seems to me that for some of my mental
output, I use a computer to create the words; not because it is more
convenient to do so; but because what I am trying to create isn't really
words at all. I am thinking here about computer software. What is this
software stuff? Well, it is words. Lots of words. No, let me re-phrase
that. It is lots and lots and lots of words. Computer programs can
easily run to millions of lines of computer code, each line consisting
of multiple words...
As a kid (well, okay, as a 20 year old) I remember printing out my
computer programs on dot matrix printers[1]. In order to debug some
problem, I would print out the relevant parts and pore over them, red
pen in hand. From time to time I would print the entire application
source code, creating a satisfying (and sometimes terrifying) pile of
printout in the process.
Now here is the weird thing: I can honestly say it has been at least a
decade since I last printed out any piece of software bigger than a
couple of pages in size. In fact, I cannot think of any major software
project I am currently working on that even exists in paper form. It is
distinctly odd, is it not, to spend all day typing words and to never
see those words on sheets of paper?
Well. I have a theory. The theory has it that although a lot of
software-related thinking results in typing and that typing results in
words and those words go into a computer...the resultant product is not
just a set of words. We speak of "source code" as being the originating
stuff from which software products are built. However anybody who has
worked on any sizable software project knows that the source code itself
is only part of the picture. In many cases, source code reads like a
cryptic crossword puzzle. Everything you need to know is staring you in
the face, but the source code needs to be *solved* not merely read.
Perhaps the reason that source code tends not to get printed these days
is that, in one important sense, the source isn't the source at all.
Finding the true source - solving the puzzle as it were - requires tools
that only computers can provide. For example, tools to navigate,
compare, search, decompose the text into re-arrangeable chunks. Tools to
actually execute the source to animate it into a running machine.
Come to think of it, most of those are reasons why I use a word
processor while thinking things through. I am truly a slave to the
delights of easy navigation, comparison, searching and decomposition.
Like a pocket calculator, I now need them in order to think things
through properly. Especially if those things are software related.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_matrix_printer
