morgan@fluke.UUCP (Bruce Eckel) (08/10/85)
I hate to get involved in religious arguments, but I have been thinking about this subject for a long time, and this discussion just sort of drew me in. It seems that everyone is invoking "economics" when they make arguments. Now, I think economics has its place, but remember it is "the science of scarcity." Perhaps this is out of its domain (like relativity is out of the domain of Newtonian mechanics). I know that the first thing an economist will tell you is that everything can be described using economics, and that anything which can't is not important. A physicist will tell you the same thing. They are able to view the world through their particular windows, and see something which is real to them. But I suggest that, though each of these views are valid, none of them are "right." To a thermodynamicist, people are localized regions of negative entropy; as long as s/he deals with the world only in this way, the dealings will be successful. But if this person's spouse is treated as a localized etc., then there will be problems. The view is innappropriate. Now look at software development. According to the "economic view", the only reason anyone develops software is for money (well, economists do allow for other perceived values, but these are hard to put numbers on and thus not important). I submit myself as a counter example. I work with computers because I like to. I enjoy thinking about them, and thinking about thinking (perhaps that is what we *really* do). When I discover or think of something new, I want to try it out *because it FEELS GOOD to create*. (quantify THAT, you determinists). "But, AHA," say my detractors, "you get paid for working with computers!" Yes, and it fits in neatly with economic theory -- the money drives the work. But if you only look at it that way, you will be missing important factors in your hurry to stuff "money implies work" into your logical scheme. When digging a ditch, the satisfaction was often limited to the pay. But if you look, you may see a trend: as we begin to do grander and more amazing things, the doers often aspire to art. I maintain computer programming has great potential to being an art; I think it is a medium which practically demmands, if nothing else, pleasing the aesthetic sense. Perhaps aspiration to art will warp "what is correct" in economics in the same way that speed warped "what is correct" in mechanics. People may do things, not simply because they can get money, but because they are satisfying. I would also like to address the issue of "what about all those man-years?" One person can do now what a large team of programmers could not accomplish in years past. Why? Because s/he has the tools for thinking and implementing thoughts which were unavailable in years past. As these tools dissipate into the public, people pick them up, play with them, and create something. They find satisfaction in the understanding and use of a new tool. This, I think, is how public domain software (by which I mean software without copy or usage restraints) is created. Bruce Eckel uw-beaver!fluke!morgan
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (08/13/85)
> ... I maintain computer programming has great potential to being an art...
Quite true. This doesn't affect the economic issues, though. Rembrandt
and da Vinci painted what they were paid to paint.
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry