there will always remain the fact that, in most cases, we do not know what we want to do until we have taken a flying leap at programming it. - Gerald M. Weinberg

The social science that provides us with the most useful overall model for computer programming is anthropology. With a little artistic license and stretching of the imagination, we could imagine computer programmers as having a culture — a shared set of beliefs and activities which shape their day-to-day activities.

Programmers do not ordinarily work in isolation. Although an individual programmer may find herself assigned the task of writing a program, even then she has other programmers to whom she may turn for help — and who, at the same time, may be turning to her.

Although technology often leads science in discovery, the philosophy of technology is usually drawn from the scientific philosophy of its time. In our time, the technology of machines has drawn its inspiration from mechanics, dealing with complexity by reducing the number of relevant parts. The technology of government, on the other hand, has drawn upon statistical mechanics, creating simplicity by dealing only with people in the structureless mass, as interchangeable units, and taking averages.