Neal Stephenson interview

[djcrowley]

Salon has an interview with Neal Stephenson. however disappointed I may be with the new trilogy (so far), I figure I'll always be interested in his work because I find his ideas and the way he talks, the things he says, to be pretty compelling. especially when he talks about the craft of writing.

a sample:

One of things you like to do on the

Comments

[apollinax]

I don't think writing is a useful analogy for programming. Sure, the two are similar at a mechanical level (e.g., "you hit one character at a time"), but that's like saying writing is similar to drawing, in that both involve making particular lines.

If I had to draw an analogy to programming, it would be architecture. Code, like architecture, is decomposable into very small sub-pieces, each of which can, for the most part, be dealt with individually. There is the issue of bringing those parts together and making sure they work (keyword: integration), but neither follow the linear path that writing does (I'm ignoring hypertext here).

For example, can you imagine sitting down to write a ten page essay, and starting by crafting a really, really good fourth paragraph of the sixth page? Then the third paragraph of the fourth page, followed by a few others, a few transition sentences...

[djcrowley]

I think architecture is certainly a more apt analogy for programming (and architecture and "software architect" are fairly common terms used in relation to software). and every analogy has its limits, but I think there is more in common between writing fiction and programming. I think your essay example is a little too reductionist.

no, you don't write page six paragraph four first, but a person writing a novel often starts out with chapter outlines and a narrative structure before actually writing out the story. and yeah, sometimes you write chapter six (or at least part of it) before you write chapter two. that's certainly something I've done in the past.

[apollinax]

But one could say that about almost any task: you first come up with a high-level plan or structure of how you'll reach your goal.

[djcrowley]

All I'm saying is that the thing you're making -- the novel or the computer program -- has got a very complicated and finely wrought hierarchical structure to it. The structure has to work right or the whole thing fails. But the only way you can work on it is by hitting one character at a time. You're building this thing one character at a time while having to maintain the whole structure in your head. That description applies equally well to programming and novel writing even though they're very different activities.

please tell me which part of that passage you disagree with. it is irrelevant to the point whether or not this process is applicable to a host of other tasks.