Whatever Happened To Programming?

Mirk writes "In a recent interview, Don Knuth wrote: 'The way a lot of programming goes today isn't any fun because it's just plugging in magic incantations — combine somebody else's software and start it up.' The Reinvigorated Programmer laments how much of our 'programming' time is spent pasting not-quite-compatible libraries together and patching around the edges." This 3-day-old article has sparked lively discussions at Reddit and at Hacker News, and the author has responded with a followup and summation.

Comments

Misleading summary.

[BitterOak]

Warning! Before you read the linked article or its followup too deeply, be aware they are not by Donald Knuth. Instead, the author has a brief quote from Donald Knuth in his first blog, and the other link is a followup story. So, "the author" referenced in the Slashdot summary is NOT Donald Knuth. I made the mistake of reading the followup article first, and then when I read the original, I found a brief quote from Donald Knuth which tipped me off to the fact that the author was not Donald Knuth, and as far as I can tell, Donald Knuth doesn't even know this author.