The Popularity of Computer Programming

With the advancement of personal computers, computer programming went from a specialized occupation to a widespread phenomenon that opinion leaders believe code is the common language of humanity. No other academic discipline enjoyed the status of computer programming. Born high and heavenly, physics and mathematics, though incredibly successful, gave way to the low and earthly computer science and information engineering. Undoubtedly, there is a factor of intelligence at work, that most people simply aren't that smart, but the popularization of computer programming offers many serious lessons for mathematics and physics.

Mathematicians and physicists like to present their works so that only intelligent people may grasp the subject matter. Programmers write human readable code with good documentation with the hope that their efforts survive the evolution of technological transformations. Open source community is not a replication of number theory or string theory circles. It's the aim at simplicity and wide readership that helped computer programming gain enormous followers. As simple as possible, but not simpler, perhaps Einstein's wisdom is worth the time of intelligent mathematicians and physicists.

Computer programming can be easily customized to suit everyone's needs. Whether it's sorting students' grades, or analyzing music tracks, there are well-written packages that do the work. Mathematics and physics are advanced by elites, but too many mathematicians and physicists take it for only elites all too often. Computer programming has no such vanity. Knuth invites all people to read his works. Can mathematicians and physicists learn from Knuth and provide something useful for everyone?

The striking feature that permeates mathematics and physics is beauty, but it's computer programming that popularized technical aesthetics to the general public. Perhaps there is something in the process of learning how to code that mathematicians and physicists are ignorant of. Instead of criticizing computer science being shallow, it's better to understand the value of trial and error as well as debugging. Failure should encourage more trials, not more discouragement.

The popularity of computer programming compared with mathematics and physics is no accident, but will mathematicians and physicists let go of their own ego and learn from it?