[plt-scheme] Re: [plt-edu] Leads on Liberal Arts Education and Programming

I was fortunate to, at 18, read one of the most inspiring works ever
written.  It begins:

  Educators, generals, dieticians, psychologists, and parents
  program. Armies, students, and some societies are programmed. An
  assault on large problems employs a succession of programs, most of
  which spring into existence en route. These programs are rife with
  issues that appear to be particular to the problem at hand. To
  appreciate programming as an intellectual activity in its own right
  you must turn to computer programming; you must read and write
  computer programs -- many of them. It doesn't matter much what the
  programs are about or what applications they serve. What does matter
  is how well they perform and how smoothly they fit with other
  programs in the creation of still greater programs. The programmer
  must seek both perfection of part and adequacy of collection.

This convinced me that computer programming must lie at the heart of a
liberal arts education.  This vision was one Matthias and I (and the
rest of us) share deeply.  I believe that had computing existed in
medieval times, programming would be part of the quadrivium.  Indeed,
one can view much of the trivium and quadrivium as grasping towards
the idea computing.

Send that to your liberal arts buddies.  They like Latin words.

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Can you guess the source to the quote above?

To avoid giving it away, here's the URL as a tinyurl:

http://tinyurl.com/3h7xgl

Shriram