Minksy y la Programación
MetaInformaciones intercambió correspondencia con el Dr. Marvin Minsky en abril de 2004 sobre el tema de la relación entre creatividad y programación de computadoras. Minsky compartió con nosotros el siguiente ensayo, publicado originalmente en 1967.
WHY PROGRAMMING IS A GOOD MEDIUM FOR EXPRESSING POORLY UNDERSTOOD AND SLOPPILY-FORMULATED IDEAS
This is a slightly revised version of a chapter published in Design and Planning II -- Computers in Design and Communication, (Martin Krampen and Peter Seitz, eds.), Visual Committee Books, Hastings House Publishers, New York, 1967.
There is a popular, widespread belief that computers can do only what they are programmed to do. This false belief is based on a confusion between form and content. A rigid grammar need not make for precision in describing processes. The programmer must be very precise in following the computer grammar, but the content he wants to be expressed remains free. The grammar is rigid because of the programmer who uses it, not because of the computer. The programmer does not even have to be exact in his own ideas-he may have a range of acceptable computer answers in mind and may be content if the computer's answers do not step out of this range. The programmer does not have to fixate the computer with particular processes. In a range of uncertainty he may ask the computer to generate new procedures, or he may recommend rules of selection and give the computer advice about which choices to make. Thus, computers do not have to be programmed with extremely clear and precise formulations of what is to be executed, or how to do it.
Resto del ensayo (pdf)