一年前我暂停了写代码后开始尝试写科幻小说时，以为这是两条完全不一样的路子。随着写的文字越来越多，不断的推倒重写那也是家常便饭了。我现在总算非常确定了，撸一个大系统和写一本小说本质上其实差不太多，它们之间那是非常相似的。【这里我们允许 Antirez 凡尔赛一把】

One year ago I paused my programming life and started writing a novel, with the illusion that my new activity was deeply different than the previous one. A river of words later, written but more often rewritten, I’m pretty sure of the contrary: programming big systems and writing novels have many common traits and similar processes.

最显而易见的共同之处，那就是这两种活都是在搬砖，一个是搬代码，一个是搬单词。代码当然不是用自然语言编写的，但是它同样也有自己的语法规则，这种规则一般只有程序员自己能懂，对外行人来说那就两眼一抹黑啦。

The most obvious parallel between the two activities is that in both of them you write something. Code is not prose written in a natural language, yet it has a set of fixed rules (a grammar), certain forms that most programmers will understand as natural and others that, while formally correct, will sound hard to grasp.

如果再深入一点，你会发现写小说跟写代码一样，都是在摆弄各种全局和局部变量，让它们在一起协作好。好的代码是由一系列精妙易读的语句组成【微观】，整体上不同的组件之间是尽可能正交解耦的，交互的边界非常清晰【宏观】。好的小说在微观和宏观这两个尺度上也是一样的，每个句子都要写的很漂亮，全局的层次结构和文章脉络同样也很关键。

There is, however, a much deeper connection between the two activities: a good program and a good novel are both the sum of local and global elements that work well. Good code must be composed of well written and readable single statements, but overall the different parts of the program must be orthogonal, designed in a coherent way, and have clean interactions. A good novel must also succeed in the same two scales of the micro and the macro. Sentences must be well written, but the overall structure and relationship between the parts is also crucial.

代码和小说之间还有一个不那么明显的相通之处，那就是你需要持续不断往前走以追究极致，它们并不是很轻松自然而然就写出来的。关于这一点，二十多年的代码生涯帮我很大，我知道我必须夜以继日的写，今天也许是写了 100 字，明天也许会写 2000 字，但是通常你不会一天下来一个字都不写的。当你想抱着一种创造性的心态来完成你的大作时，就会经常深切地感受到什么叫文思枯竭。但是也不完全相同，作为工程师如果一天不写代码会被认为是懒惰是懈怠。但是对于艺术家，这就不一样了，慵懒的心态是创作时必须的灵感之源。

A less structural link between programming and writing is in the drive you need when approaching one or the other: to succeed you need to make progresses, and to make progresses you have to be consistent. There is extensive agreement on the fact that programs and novels don’t write themselves, yet. Twenty years of writing code helped me immensely with this aspect; I knew that things happen only if you sit every day and write: one day one hundred words, the other day two thousands, but rare is the day I don’t put words on the page. And if you have written code that is not just a “filler” for a bigger system, but a creation of your own, you know that writer block also happens in programming. The only difference is that for most people you are an engineer, hence, if you don’t work, you are lazy. The same laziness, in the case of an artist, will assume the shape of a fascinating part of the creative process.

接下来我们重点谈谈不一样的地方。

The differences.

写小说和写代码最大的不同之处在于文字经过编辑校对定稿后就基本不会再修改了，也会有些时候作者在多年之后会对原作进行局部小修正然后再发布一个新版，但是这不多见，而且这通常也只是一锤子买卖。代码就不是这样的，它需要不断修改，需求源源不断到来，而且还经常是多人一起改。也正因此产生了两种不同的行为模式：程序员会觉得系统的初版无关紧要，反正时间总是要改进它。但是作家就不行，对于每一本小说他只有一次机会写出来，所以需要不断反复的推倒重写。说起来你可能不信，其中的每个句子、每个章节、对话都要重写两三次，有时候甚至要重写数十次。

I believe the most sharp difference between writing and programming is that, once written, edited and finalized, a novel remains immutable, mostly. There are several cases of writers returning on their novels after several years, publishing a bug fixed version of it, but this is rare and, even when happens, a one-shot process. Code evolves over time, is targeted by an endless stream of changes, often performed by multiple people. This simple fact has profound effects on the two processes: programmers often believe that the first version of a system can be quite imperfect; after all there will be time to make improvements. On the other hand writers know they have a single bullet for every novel, to the point that writing prose is mostly the act of rewriting. Rewriting sentences, whole chapters, dialogues that sound fake, sometimes two, three, or even ten times.

写代码还是需要向写小说学习一下的，学习作家对待小说原版的那种认真劲：在初创的过程中随心所欲、大刀阔斧、反复不断的修改内核，力求做到最优雅的设计。我认为系统最初的设计会非常影响后续的发展【好比性格决定命运】，平滑自然的演进才会慢慢诞生出一个漂亮完美的系统，即使是在多年之后，系统整体上已经面目全非，最初的版本只是其中的极小一部分。

I believe programming, in this regard, can learn something from writing: when writing the first core of a new system, when the original creator is still alone, isolated, able to do anything, she should pretend that this first core is her only bullet. During the genesis of the system she should rewrite this primitive kernel again and again, in order to find the best possible design. My hypothesis is that this initial design will greatly inform what will happen later: growing organically something that has a good initial structure will result in a better system, even after years of distance from the original creation, and even if the original core was just a tiny faction of the future mass the system would eventually assume.

最后再提一下我最近写的科幻小说，我估计大家会很感兴趣。自己检查了很多遍之后，总算把它发给了我的编辑，他叫 Giulio Mozzi，未来几周他会给我提一些修改意见。我会参考他的说明来重新进行一轮检查，期望未来一两个月能完成定稿。然后我就会发布这第一个意大利语版本，同时还会让我远在美国的翻译来搞定发表英文的版本。作家之路漫漫其修远兮，吾将上下而求索。

In case you are interested, a quick update about my sci-fi novel. After many self-reviews I sent the manuscript to my editor, Giulio Mozzi. He will send me the change proposals in a few weeks. I’ll start a new review process informed by his notes, and hopefully finalize the novel in one or two months. Then, finally, I’ll be ready to publish the Italian version. At the same time the finalized novel will be sent to my translator, in the US, and when she ends the translation the English version will be published as well. It’s a long journey, but one that I deeply enjoyed taking.

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