Why programmers should love to read and write

Everyday as a programmer we solve problems and introduce new problems. Most of the time is spent in reading other people source code, library documentation, replying to developers email. Though communication is what programmers do all the time with computer and humans.

Programmers around the globe suggests books like SICP. I have never come across people who suggests books like on writing well for programmers. Though I haven’t read the book myself, the point is why aren’t people recommending books like how to write well.

Why writing and reading is core to programmers

• As a programmer most of the time we spend is reading documentation or code. what if the documentation of entire library is in single page (Unix style), how many would like to read ?

• More people read the documentation compared to source code. If you are a programmer and don’t like to write, hardly your tools will save others time. If you don’t enjoy writing or language is not as good as your code, library will have lukewarm acceptance.

• If you aren’t writing well you can’t work remotely, though you may get a chance to work in awesome startup in your area.

• Everybody spends equal time reading and writing email as compared to code. If your email is not well written, you will have tough time getting the work done.

• If you are coming with new specs for your product and if your writing isn’t lucid to read and not conveying the message, you will have hard time convincing though the design may be brilliant.

• Most programmers feel happy when they commit lot of code also, when code is merged to master. You should have same kind of happiness when you read technical documentation or write one.