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I'd suggest most people who excel at bike riding approach it with the same enthusiasm and drive as you attribute to the programmers who excel (to your credit, y

I'd suggest most people who excel at bike riding approach it with the same enthusiasm and drive as you attribute to the programmers who excel (to your credit, you mention "everything else" is the same, which would include cycling until you pick it out as an anecdote at the end of the paragraph) and that's before achieving a level where they can actually make money on their cycling ability. To run with your analogy though: if programming were like riding a bike, that could do great things for society. There would be a significant portion of the working population that understood the idea of what their computers were made to do and improve their ability ability to leverage these machines to assist them in achieving their tasks even more efficiently. That would be the equivalent to the majority of people who can ride a bike and could use that skill to improve their mobility while saving money for themselves and their local society, improving health,..., reaping all of those benefits that can be achieved from knowing how to ride a bike even if most people who can ride a bike will never be able to live off of their bike riding ability.

macspoofing 9y ago
>There would be a significant portion of the working population that understood the idea of what their computers were made to do You don't need programming for that. A good mental model of modern computing is important but programming is overkill. >improve their ability ability to leverage these machines to assist them in achieving their tasks even more efficiently. Ok but it doesn't work like that. I don't know what kind of utopia you are imagining but it is a pipe dream. I can one up you, society would be far better off if they were more financially literate. Or even better if we got the literacy rate up - you would be surprised by the vast number of people who are functionally illiterate (and I'm not speaking about those for whom English is a second language)
- philippoi 9y ago
  I agree! Good points. Financial literacy is next on my list, personally (any recommendations?). As charged, it is a utopia I was picturing, but I often like to mentally dabble in that terrain as I find it can expose potential paths forward. Sure, the envisioned Utopia won't be the actual destination, but its artificial brightness makes bumps that I normally easily miss suddenly salient.
- jpttsn 9y ago
  Is it easy to get to a good mental model of computing, without programming?
  - macspoofing 9y ago
    Yes. What I meant by that term are things like the user understanding enough about modern file systems that when they download a file they understand where it's stored as well as typical file CRUD operation. They know enough of the web to reasonably protect themselves from malware and are able to distinguish between a valid site and a generic phishing attempt. They understand the point of a browser or mail client and not think that IE and Internet or Outlook and Email are interchangeable. They are able to diagnose and debug the most basic issues (print job failing to print because the wrong print target was selected, able to understand network connectivity issues vs. application not working). You'd be surprised how many people fail at those very basic computing tasks, and those are the kinds of things people need to know to get their jobs done. Knowing how to program in Python isn't going to do anything for the VP of Business Development.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

macspoofing 9y ago

>There would be a significant portion of the working population that understood the idea of what their computers were made to do You don't need programming for that. A good mental model of modern computing is important but programming is overkill. >improve their ability ability to leverage these machines to assist them in achieving their tasks even more efficiently. Ok but it doesn't work like that. I don't know what kind of utopia you are imagining but it is a pipe dream. I can one up you, society would be far better off if they were more financially literate. Or even better if we got the literacy rate up - you would be surprised by the vast number of people who are functionally illiterate (and I'm not speaking about those for whom English is a second language)

philippoi 9y ago
I agree! Good points. Financial literacy is next on my list, personally (any recommendations?). As charged, it is a utopia I was picturing, but I often like to mentally dabble in that terrain as I find it can expose potential paths forward. Sure, the envisioned Utopia won't be the actual destination, but its artificial brightness makes bumps that I normally easily miss suddenly salient.
jpttsn 9y ago
Is it easy to get to a good mental model of computing, without programming?
- macspoofing 9y ago
  Yes. What I meant by that term are things like the user understanding enough about modern file systems that when they download a file they understand where it's stored as well as typical file CRUD operation. They know enough of the web to reasonably protect themselves from malware and are able to distinguish between a valid site and a generic phishing attempt. They understand the point of a browser or mail client and not think that IE and Internet or Outlook and Email are interchangeable. They are able to diagnose and debug the most basic issues (print job failing to print because the wrong print target was selected, able to understand network connectivity issues vs. application not working). You'd be surprised how many people fail at those very basic computing tasks, and those are the kinds of things people need to know to get their jobs done. Knowing how to program in Python isn't going to do anything for the VP of Business Development.
deleted 9y ago
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