Why programming is a good medium for expressing poorly understood ideas

... poorly understood - <i>and sloppily formulated</i> - ideas This is my favorite part of programming :)<p>You have an idea and attempt to codify it. During the process, your code starts to get uglier and uglier. Refactoring the code leads you to re-examine your conceptualization of the problem, leading to new insights outside the domain of programming. If your code does not lend well to abstraction, it's a good indicator that perhaps your idea has missed the mark. See the structure of the code, compare it to the structure of the idea and you have a whole new platform for creativity. Think. Write. Refactor. Rinse and repeat.<p>Turning bad ideas into good ideas.<p>Perhaps the reason why so many successful startups are famous for inventions resulting from other than their original ideas.

Computers are a good tool for modeling things and managing complexity. Good models will sometimes yield surprising and beneficial results. This is becoming a part of the common wisdom expressed in a variety of ways:<p>"Evolution is smarter than you."<p>"The street will find its own use for technology."<p>Someone should do a Wikipedia-like site based on the old Connections series on PBS. I think you could do a site like this based solely on the history of technology and its interconnections.

imho, the title of the paper is really great, and that's about it...