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Salon Interviews Neal Stephenson

Posted by timothy on from the whose-books-bring-me-joy dept.

edibleplastic writes "Salon has a great interview with Neal Stephenson, author of such science fiction favorites as Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and Quicksilver. He discusses his views on the scientific community (both past and present), the world of science fiction, and writing in general. "I think there are common threads between writing and programming... All I'm saying is that the thing you're making -- the novel or the computer program -- has got a very complicated and finely wrought hierarchical structure to it. The structure has to work right or the whole thing fails. But the only way you can work on it is by hitting one character at a time...""

4 of 256 comments (clear)

  1. So... by xconslash · · Score: 4, Funny

    One character at a time. Does that mean writing and programming are both O(n)?

    --


    .sig error: carrier signal lost.
  2. Snowcrash vs Cryptomicon : WWF final by ishmaelflood · · Score: 4, Funny

    a) C is twice as heavy at least, so in a free for all wrestling match it will win

    b) C is funnier than S

    c) S has the best shaggy dog story (the fight in the mall)

    d) C has the best sidebars. The breakfast cereal one, in particular.

    e) S is a bit, well, dull. Software hackers (or pizza delivery people) might be very interesting to themselves, but entrepeneurs are more exciting to read about for the rest of us.

    I make that 4:1 in favour of the current heavyweight, Mr Cryptonomicon.

    Fix! fix!

  3. Re:Writing != Programming by sbma44 · · Score: 5, Funny
    You're absolutely right. A program can be beautiful, and its creators can take pride in it. This is the same pride a bricklayer might take in a well-built wall. That doesn't mean it's a creative endeavor.

    I think it's hilarious that the article includes an edited version of Stephenson's comments comparing programming the writing. He was led into that question by the interviewer and he heavily qualified his answer, to the point where it basically boiled down to "both involve typing". Yet we Slashdotters are ready to jump all over it -- "OMG Neal and I are exactly the same we'll be best friends 4EVER!!!"

    Stephenson's awesome: an entertaining writer and a geek to boot. Let's not forget which one comes first.

  4. Re:I'll only read the article by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Funny
    > if someone assures me that is has a @$^@$%&$ ending!

    Of course it has an ending. You set up this recursive loop, see, and you have it going around and around. And you have this other thread running in the background. And it spawns two child processes. And then you do a malloc(), and you say "Holy Fark! Only three pages free!". So you exit(0) and kill -9 everything.

    Halting problem, my ass. All Stephenson novels halt. You even get advanced warning when you realize that you can feel your right forefinger and your right thumb through the last couple of pages! What more could you ask for?

    (Disclaimer: I love Stephenson's novels. I despise the abrupt endings, though. I hope for the sake of Mrs. Stephenson that he doesn't fuck like he writes. If he does fuck like he writes, would she please enclue him? It might improve his writing!)