[Haskell-cafe] Writing "Haskell For Dummies Or At Least For People Who Feel Like Dummies When They See The Word 'Monad'"

[Arie Peterson]

> [...] I think the concept of computer is better to
> see as sort of telescope or translator. Computers
> allow to look at processes (and complexity) which
> would otherwise not conceivable to our limited minds.
> The idea of computers as telescopes is from Daniel
> Dennett though.

"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about
telescopes." :p

More relevantly: again Dijkstra, but now on (programming as) composing music:

"There are many different styles of composition. I characterize them
always as Mozart versus Beethoven. When Mozart began to write at that time
he had the composition ready in his mind. He wrote the manuscript and it
was 'aus einem Guss' (casted as one). And it was also written very
beautiful. Beethoven was an indecisive and a tinkerer and wrote down
before he had the composition ready and plastered parts over to change
them. There was a certain place where he plastered over nine times and one
did remove that carefully to see what happened and it turned out the last
version was the same as the first one."