The story of how he got over the threshold of explaining "how he got tenure" makes me think of a subject I've been thinking of for a while, that is, how it takes a certain stimulus some time to activate people into creative action.
I have a theory that this is another facet of the software developer's need to "hold it all in your head". Once he had a top-level abstraction, the rest of the article could be factored into paragraphs.
Yeah, but even though I am a software dev I'm inclined to look at it like an English major. It's one thing to develop a story that is intellectually powerful, it's another to develop one that is emotionally powerful.
