Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
For all of these reasons and more, programming in the 1950s acquired
a reputation for being incomprehensible to all but a small set of extremely
talented insiders. As John Backus would later describe it, “Each [pro-
gramming] problem required a unique beginning at square one, and the
success of a program depended primarily on the programmer's private
techniques and invention.”
41
Techniques developed for one application
or installation could not be easily adapted for other purposes. There were
few useful or widely applicable tools available to programmers, and
certainly no science of programming. Programmers often worked in
relative isolation, and had few opportunities for formal or even informal
education. They generally perceived little value in the work going on
at other fi rms or laboratories, as it was equally haphazard and
idiosyncratic. They placed great emphasis on local knowledge and indi-
vidual ability.
The widespread perception that programming was a black art per-
vades the industry and technical literature of the 1950s and 1960s.
42
Even today, more than a half century after the invention of the fi rst
electronic computers, the notion that computer programming still retains
an essentially artistic character is still widely accepted.
43
Whether or not
this is desirable is an entirely different question—one that remains a
subject of considerable and contentious debate. What is important for
the purposes of this topic is the various ways in which the language of
art, aesthetics, and craft is used throughout the history of computing to
elevate, denigrate, or castigate programmers and other software special-
ists. By characterizing the work that they did as artistic, programmers
could lay claim to the autonomy and authority that came with being an
artist. If it were true, as one industry observer suggested in the late 1960s,
that “generating software is 'brain business,' often an agonizingly diffi -
cult intellectual effort,” then talented programmers were effectively irre-
placeable, and should be treated and compensated accordingly.
44
On the other hand, being artistic might also imply that one was not
scientifi c or professional. One common usage of the word art, of course,
is in reference to the visual, literary, or performing arts. In this context,
describing programmers as artists implied that they were might be non-
conformist, unreliable, or eccentric—not traits likely to endear them to
straitlaced corporate managers. Although some programmers (and man-
agers) did apply this meaning of the word art to programming—Brooks
used a “programmers as poets” metaphor—for the most part the word
was used in its more traditional association with craft technique and
preindustrial forms of production.
45
When participants at the NATO
