Now that I'm retired I want to write code as it ought to be written; truly for people not machines.
I learnt software engineering back in the 80's and came across Knuth's Literate Programming concept way back then. I was immediately both intrigued and disappointed; it was just that the stories his code told were just, well, BORING. It seemed like a lot of headache for not so much reward.
I never went back to it.
But I did learn a lot about storytelling, and the human condition, over the years - and never really lost the yearning for code to transcend the shackles of its limited sytax and lexicon.
So I dug a bit deeper and realised the missing component in programming is cognitive ignition.
None of our tools, languages, approaches recognise that creation, being a creative, is a cognitive - not purely rational - pursuit.
Understanding comes not just from knowing, but from experiencing, feeling, also.
And it need not be a fanciful nonsense to suggest that computer code can be felt.
Narrative is a fundamental cognitive function for the human mind - it is exactly what allows us to experience (feel) the abstract; that is what story does for us.
So I hope that marrying narrative to source code will give us a new approach for authoring software. Perhaps even a new language for when we ask these so-called AIs to generate code for us...
In this collection you will find individual articles that chart the evolution of my Narratival-Exposition Paradigm for code development. It aims to plug key gaps in the original Literate Programming approach, vis-à-vis: Metaphor and a Narrative Grammar. I guess I will create a consolidated ccodified manifesto at some point; right now there's a bit of wading through to really get to where I am at... although the GitHub Repository I have created with the first ever Narrative Software maybe a handy intro ;^)
