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It's hard to write code for computers, but it's even harder to write code for humans · Erik Bernhardsson

erikbern.com · 1,954 words · saved by 2 readers

Writing code for a computer is hard enough. You take something big and fuzzy, some large vague business outcome you want to achive. Then you break it down recursively and think about all the cases until you have clear logical statements a computer can follow. Computers are very good at following logical statements. Now, let's crank it up a notch. Let's try to write code for humans! I need to clarify what I mean. I'm talking about code that other humans will interact with. More specifically, I'm talking about the art of crafting joyful frameworks, libraries, APIs, SDKs, DSLs, embedded DSLs, or maybe even programming languages. Writing this code is much harder, because you're not just telling a computer what to do, you're also grappling with another user's mental model of your code. Now it's equal part computer science and psychology of reasoning, or something. How do you get that person to understand your code? Feynman famously said: Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons

It's hard to write code for computers, but it's even harder to write code for humans 2024-09-27 Writing code for a computer is hard enough. You take something big and fuzzy, some large vague business outcome you want to achive. Then you break it down recursively and think about all the cases until you have clear logical statements a computer can follow. Computers are very good at following logical statements. Now, let's crank it up a notch. Let's try to write code for humans ! I need to clarify what I mean. I'm talking about code that other humans will interact with. More specifically, I'm tal

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