new years resolutions

[Bjorn Pettersen]

> From: andy [mailto:andy at eastonwest.co.uk] 
[...]
> On a purely personal level, I *feel* that programming, to me, 
> is solving a problem by the use of a computer-programming 
> language.  To me, HTML coding doesn't *feel* like that, but 
> maybe that's because I'm not very *good* at it...  I think 
> its because of the lack of control structures (I am trying to 
> self-analyse to figure out what I mean)... having said that, 
> I suppose tables, for instance resemble control structures...
[...]

I told myself I wasn't going to keep this thread alive anymore, but then
who said I was either principled or consistent <wink>.

I think the above is the crux of the problem however. Ask yourself (i)
would I write HTML pages differently if I considered it programming?,
(ii) would I write Python programs differently if I considered writing
HTML programming?, (iii) would I view people writing HTML differently if
they were allowed to call it programming?, and finally, (iv) do I think
other people would view me differently if writing HTML was also
considered programming?

My personal answers are no, no, no, and I don't care. Wheter writing
HTML is programming makes no difference to anything I'm doing, nor do I
expect, does it to any of our web designers. It's a fact of life that I
couldn't do their work, and they couldn't do mine -- and I don't have
enough hubris to suggest that my work is either harder, more important,
or more meaningful (I'm having a hard time seeing another reason for
making a distinction... i.e. tell my _why_ you want do make a
distinction and the "how" should be much easier). Besides, even I end up
writing a lot of HTML (aka documentation) -- should I change my title to
"Software Architect/HTML writer" <wink>? (As an experiment, try telling
your boss you don't want to write documentation, in HTML, since you're a
_programmer_ <grin>).

Finally, it seems rather silly to try to define set membership (is HTML
in the set of programming languages?) as a all or nothing (function
returning either 0 or 1) when (a) you don't have a concrete definition,
(b) it seems to rely on a combination of factors in varying degrees, and
(c) a good number of the people interested all but define it as the
intent _they're_ having when _they're_ writing HTML ("HTML is something
I use for documentation, for my _real_ work I use X".) For a much better
(or at least more interesting) approach google for "Russel's paradox"
and "fuzzy logic".

ok-I'll-shut-up-now'ly y'rs
-- bjorn