On the nature of programming. What it feels like? This evening I want to talk about computer programming. Not about technical tricks or programming languages - this is a really big topic, but about its subjective aspects. What programming is like? Since computers are in fact big and complex calculators, some people might think that programming feels like doing some math. This is rarely true, though. The vast majority of software developers uses math in their job relatively rarely. Others can think that programming is more like architecture - you are building complex program from small blocks, just like a building is build from small bricks. This assumption is much closer - building metaphor is widely used in related books. However, software architecture is much younger, than its "big brother". There are third point of view on software development. This process is very similar to translation from one natural language to another. In both cases, you have to translate some ideas or descriptions from one language to another. Of course, programming languages are more strict and limited (and thus much easier to learn), than natural ones, but as every translator you'll finally starts finding yourself thinking in a language you used to write. I'll really appreciate any corrections and comments. Next time we'll talk about such subjective things as "bad code" and "good code" and what do we mean by them. So long!