A programming system component costs at least three times as much as a stand alone program of the same function. The cost may be greater if the system has many components. In the lower right hand corner of stands the programming systems product. This differs from the simple program in all of the above ways. It costs nine times as much. But it is the truly useful object.
First is the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in his mud pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own design. I think this delight must be an image of God's delight in making things, a delight shown in the distinctness and newness of each leaf and each snowflake. The intended product of most system programming efforts.
Second is the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people. Deep within, we want others to use our work and to find it helpful. In this respect the programming system is not essentially different from the child's first clay pencil holder "for Daddy's office."Third is the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles,playing out the consequences of principles built in from the beginning.
The programmed computer has all the fascination of the pinball machine or the jukebox mechanism, carried to the ultimate. Fourth is the joy of always learning, which springs from the non repeating nature of the task. In one way or another the problem is ever new, and its solver learns something sometimes practial, sometimes theoretical, and sometimes both.
No comments:
Post a Comment