In chapter 107 of Moby Dick, Herman Melville describes what it's like to work in the IT department of a corporation spearheaded by a CEO.
In the January 2, 2017 issue of The New Yorker, Yiyun Li—also unwittingly, no doubt—describes the process of learning yet another programming language. In the following snippet, Li presents a variation of the first language lesson that Allan Vermeulen et al. teach in The Elements of Java Style (page 1): "When modifying existing software, your changes should follow the style of the original code. Do not introduce a new coding style . . . Rewriting old code simply to change its style may result in the introduction of costly yet avoidable defects." In Mrs. Li's words:
When we enter a world—a new country, a new school, a party, a family or a class reunion, an army camp, a hospital—we speak the language it requires. The wisdom to adapt is the wisdom to have two languages: the one spoken to others, and the one spoken to oneself. One learns to master the public language not much differently from the way that one acquires a second language: assess the situations, construct sentences with the right words and the correct syntax, catch a mistake if one can avoid it, or else apologize and learn the lesson after a blunder. Fluency in the public language, like fluency in a second language, can be achieved with enough practice.
