Reading Donna’s post this morning about managerial and belletristic rhetoric reminded me of Matt Barton’s article, The Fine Art of Computer Programming (via techrhet).

It occurs to me that Barton is advocating a belletristic approach to programming. In the article, Barton calls for an appreciation of the aestetics of computer code, for it to be judged not by how it functions, but by how it can be read as literature–how it may be enjoyed.

When I was in corporate, I asked many a programmer to comment their code. Yet, I never thought about the rhetoric of computer code then. I can easily see that if the code was maintained, it would tell one part of the history of an organization. On the other hand, I don’t think that is likely to happen. I did a quick ego surf and I’ve noticed that all traces of my existence are already gone from the HTML at the last place that I worked. Zip. It was as if I was never there.

However, I’m seeing more of an interest in aesthetics in new software products that have their origins on the web. Is it because there is an affective labor component? Maybe.