Thoughts of a Lonely Programmer

The writer is doubtless stricken with writers block
And can thus, for weeks, vanish into a myriad of dark rooms
Where conversation dangles under glistening rows of liquor.

The programmer is expected to be rational and precise,
Never letting the scent of aesthetics cause a diversion from the path
Toward solving the problem in it's sharpest most immediate form.

But what if the problem can't be solved by known solutions?
What if tested algorithms or language tricks fall short?
And the only way to solve anything is to leave the computer far behind.

Sometimes the only way forward is to reshape the language itself
But this could be more costly than the entire problem,
It's not a solution, it's a revolution or an evolution (which may mean the same thing).

A programmer doesn't need a muse - the machine takes care of that.
There are infinite ways of creating a correct program to satisfy a certain requirement.
But few of these will ever satisfy those cutting minds who have mastered the craft of writing.

The lines of code we edit might lack ambiguity of syntax or grammar,
But are still unavoidably unique forms that can't escape aesthetic judgement.
Does that mean programs must be mined from veins of the same ore that provides poetry?

If the craft of programming seeks the best idioms for running thoughts on machines,
We have got close, much closer than the first imperative architects ever dreamed,
But these thoughts are all too often idiosyncratic products of a single lonely mind.