DDJ: If you could climb in the pulpit and scold, exhort, and encourage every working programmer in the United States, what would you tell them?

DK: The first thing I would say is that when you write a program, think of it primarily as a work of literature. You're trying to write something that human beings are going to read. Don't think of it primarily as something a computer is going to follow. The more effective you are at making your program readable, the more effective it's going to be: You'll understand it today, you'll understand it next week, and your successors who are going to maintain and modify it will understand it.

&[From An Interview with DonaldKnuth, DDJ, 1996 Apr &]