Ftrain: Getting Close to the Machine

The Bug has several code samples in it, and I found that to write even such short routines, I had to imagine the shape of the whole system they were part of. And, immediately, I slipped right back into the coder's mind-set, hours going by in a kind of ferocious anxious humming. It was hugely pleasurable; it was exhausting. I soon found I was using code to avoid writing - oh, I'll just fiddle with this little section here - and a whole day would go by without my having written a scene or a line of dialogue. So I had to put the code aside.