[fao_]

You're both arguing the same point...

[catnaroek]

Not at all. I emphatically disagree with this:

> it is the very act of communication that defines the program.

[fao_]

  > it is the very act of communication that defines the program

  Programs are defined by the syntax and semantics of a programming language.

In what way is the language of programming not communication?

[catnaroek]

You don't need to communicate your programs to anyone or anything for them to exist. If I write a program on a piece of paper, and don't give this piece of paper to anyone else, a program still exists. (I might have to transcribe it into a computer if I don't want to run it manually myself, though.)

[fao_]

And written language isn't a form of communication? (In your example, from yourself to a future form of yourself, or from yourself to the computer).

[catnaroek]

Well, if you take the view that persisting any representation of information from one spacetime event [0] to another is “communication”, then pretty much any physical process is “communication”. But then the term kinda starts to lose its meaning.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_(relativity)