When Crime Novelest Richard Price (author of Lush Life and other great works) during his March 5, 2008 interview by Fresh Air's Terri Gross was asked about the collaborative process of working with several screen writers on the HBO series “The Wire” he responded:

I liked it 'cause it involved having a real social life. You know writing is so isolating; Basically you sit there for 30 years rearranging 26 letters of the alphabet by yourself, you get cobwebs going from your forehead to the pen, the phone never rings… now all of the sudden you've got six other idiots there and you're actually doing this thing called ‘having a conversation’? You know, its revolutionary!

In addition to humorous and genuine, his remark also immediately rang familiar: writing in all mediums is ultimately a solitary endeavor. Whether prose, poetry or programming, each author is performing a soliloquy giving voice to his or her own vision. Even when combined with the voices of others the product is less a unified chorus than it is a cacophony of ideas each competing for attention from their audience.

While no author works in a vacuum (except, perhaps, in out here the blogosphere) most of us treat writing as a monologue spoken to our audience rather than the dialog that it could be. Nowhere is this truer than in authoring applications. Programs are written with their author's perception of the ‘right way’ to solve a particular problem, often only incorporating other harmonious voices after they are well into the process. Rarely are projects approached with a communal theme, even realm of community-based open source projects. Nowhere is this illustrated better than any overview of the myriad of software development processes born in the frustration found fighting this very human nature.

I do not broach this topic with either a new solution or particular resistance to the effort. Simple recognition, brought on by listening to another author wrestling with the human tenancies of his handicraft and vocation. Hopefully others will find as much pleasure in his introspection as I did.