dan (07/19/82)
When I went to see TRON I was ready for a childish move with some good
graphics. And to a certain degree that is what I saw. However, some
points are worth mentioning. The first is that the actors had to
mime their parts, for some reason having to do with the graphics dubbing.
The parallelism between "users" and "programs" I found to be
very interesting. This raises the point that we leave our imprint
on everything we do. An artist's painting is recognized by its style
and other attributes that the painting possesses. Thus, art experts
can usually tell quite readily whether or not painting is a counterfeit.
In the same manner, certainly an "artistic" programmer exhibits
certain elements of style (Do you suppose that Kernighan and Plauger
would agree?) unique to himself. At any rate, all this is just to
state that I thought that the makers of TRON displayed a part of
computer science (artistry?) that few non-computer scientists are
aware of.
Along with the user-programmer bond, a certain god-serf
relationship was evidenced between "users" and "programmers".
I am certain that all programmers have held this belief at some time,
even if it was subconscious. Whether or not anyone agrees or disagrees,
I would like to hear some comments.
Dan Ulrich
Library Systems Development
pur-ee!dan