Charles Simonyi and Intentional Programming
An interesting article on how Charles Simonyi, who designed Microsoft Office and invented Hungarian notation <shudder>, hopes to make programming easier.
Bill Gates calls Simonyi “one of the great programmers of all time.” Indeed, Simonyi is arguably the most successful coder in the world, measured in terms of financial reward and the number of people who use his creations. (Other celebrated programmer-billionaires, such as Larry Ellison and Bill Gates himself, made their money and names founding and managing technology ventures.) Simonyi could easily choose to spend the rest of his life endowing philanthropic ventures, flying planes, or cruising in his yacht. Instead, he says, he is “programming probably harder than ever before.” He is obsessed with a project that he has pursued for a decade and a half, and that four years ago carried him right out of Microsoft’s doors. He is proud of his profession. But he is also haunted by the thought of what programmers must contend with each time they sit down to code. He asks, Why is it so hard to create good software?
