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This definitely counts as a highbrow dismissal! As I age, I find it harder and harder to remember how easy and natural it is for young people to learn new thin

by yarvin9 11y ago

This definitely counts as a highbrow dismissal! As I age, I find it harder and harder to remember how easy and natural it is for young people to learn new things: ideas, theories, languages, and yes -- names. Alas, we can't rejuvenate our brains. I know of only one (partial) cure: have your own kids. You'll feel jealous all the time, but it's worth it. It's painful to admit that I'm probably too old to learn other peoples' new languages. But any new language isn't and can't be designed for 42-year-old silverbacks. It has to be designed for kids -- or at least, people are who are kids now. And believe me, teenagers love this kind of stuff... [Edit: tptacek, when you edit a comment after posting it, I think it's good etiquette to mark it with an [edit]]?

tptacek 11y ago
FWIW: I wrote the first half of that comment, then 5 minutes later, feeling it was too snarky without explaining itself, added the sentence: "There's overreaching first-principles boil-the-ocean dorm room rethinking of concepts, and then there's renaming the ASCII characters." I'm a parent of two teenagers, neither of whom seems particularly interested in new names for punctuation.
- yarvin9 11y ago
  I understand. And it did improve the comment, so I forgive you. But it's just irritating when someone hangs a fat fastball over the plate, you whack it, then find out that the pitch magically turned into a curveball and all you've hit is a ground-ball single. An XS Nock shirt is a dress for my daughter, but she loves the "code." I guess all kids are different. But you never know what they're ready to learn until you try to teach them.
agumonkey 11y ago
I wonder if it's hard because we don't try enough, because reality and pragmatism bolt us to dry reuse rather wheel reinvention. Even more digressing, I'm very curious if young brains have an innate sense of 'new' in the most complex and abstract sense. It's as if they smell it.
wlievens 11y ago
As for having kids, I have to say this: it's a wonderful experience, but it definitely doesn't make you smarter! Maybe that's the sleep deprivation talking though...

by yarvin9 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

FWIW: I wrote the first half of that comment, then 5 minutes later, feeling it was too snarky without explaining itself, added the sentence: "There's overreaching first-principles boil-the-ocean dorm room rethinking of concepts, and then there's renaming the ASCII characters." I'm a parent of two teenagers, neither of whom seems particularly interested in new names for punctuation.

yarvin9 11y ago
I understand. And it did improve the comment, so I forgive you. But it's just irritating when someone hangs a fat fastball over the plate, you whack it, then find out that the pitch magically turned into a curveball and all you've hit is a ground-ball single. An XS Nock shirt is a dress for my daughter, but she loves the "code." I guess all kids are different. But you never know what they're ready to learn until you try to teach them.

agumonkey 11y ago

I wonder if it's hard because we don't try enough, because reality and pragmatism bolt us to dry reuse rather wheel reinvention. Even more digressing, I'm very curious if young brains have an innate sense of 'new' in the most complex and abstract sense. It's as if they smell it.

wlievens 11y ago

As for having kids, I have to say this: it's a wonderful experience, but it definitely doesn't make you smarter! Maybe that's the sleep deprivation talking though...