3 ms·

You could say the same about electrical or mechanical engineering, both of which are already pervasive.

ggambetta 9y ago
Hmmm. Interesting. I don't need to know much about electrical engineering to use electric and electronic devices all day long. As you say, they're even more pervasive than software. Two ideas come to mind. First, maybe this is because electricity has gone far beyond "pervasive" into "fully invisible". Second, maybe this is because software is inherently more complex and can't be made fully invisible. Maybe both ideas are actually the same, but playing on different points of their lifecycles - will software become so industrialised and standardised within a century that it will become as invisible as electricity? Thinking about early car owners, who needed some non-trivial understanding of how it worked just to be able to use it, or how you needed to know some trivial amount of BASIC to do anything at all with the 80's home computers (<3 ZX Spectrum).
- ldp01 9y ago
  > Two ideas come to mind. First, maybe this is because electricity has gone far beyond "pervasive" into "fully invisible". Second, maybe this is because software is inherently more complex and can't be made fully invisible. I think your second point is the correct one. Software eats itself as much as it eats anything else. This is the purpose of compilers and high level languages. To someone coding in a high level language, C code, assembly, and the electronic hardware itself are all reduced to invisible infrastructure. (That's the idea anyway, leaky abstractions notwithstanding). So, I would argue low level software is often already invisible in the sense that it is hidden behind the abstraction of higher level languages or user interfaces. But the definition of "low level" changes as more advanced software is created, so it's forever a moving target.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  Another explanation: electricity is dangerous. So are machines. If you can automate some portion of your desk job, you're a much more valuable employee. The same is theoretically true for factory workers and mechanical/electrical engineers, but the barrier to creating your own factory automation is extremely high. And no one is going to let a random factory worker tweak/augment expensive machinery in a novel and untested way. Whereas an Excel macro or quick Python script for parsing some data and doing some computations or sending some emails is very accessible and totally acceptable in many environments.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  Not exactly "fully invisible", but it got a much simpler interface than what we have any expectation of ever achieving with software. And some people still die because they used that interface wrongly.
userbinator 9y ago
I don't know in detail what it's like now, but when I was in school (decades ago...) those subjects were covered as part of physics. Whether the majority have retained that knowledge is a different matter, but it was definitely taught; I suppose the same would apply to programming if it were to become part of the mandatory curriculum.

Hmmm. Interesting. I don't need to know much about electrical engineering to use electric and electronic devices all day long. As you say, they're even more pervasive than software. Two ideas come to mind. First, maybe this is because electricity has gone far beyond "pervasive" into "fully invisible". Second, maybe this is because software is inherently more complex and can't be made fully invisible. Maybe both ideas are actually the same, but playing on different points of their lifecycles - will software become so industrialised and standardised within a century that it will become as invisible as electricity? Thinking about early car owners, who needed some non-trivial understanding of how it worked just to be able to use it, or how you needed to know some trivial amount of BASIC to do anything at all with the 80's home computers (<3 ZX Spectrum).

ldp01 9y ago
> Two ideas come to mind. First, maybe this is because electricity has gone far beyond "pervasive" into "fully invisible". Second, maybe this is because software is inherently more complex and can't be made fully invisible. I think your second point is the correct one. Software eats itself as much as it eats anything else. This is the purpose of compilers and high level languages. To someone coding in a high level language, C code, assembly, and the electronic hardware itself are all reduced to invisible infrastructure. (That's the idea anyway, leaky abstractions notwithstanding). So, I would argue low level software is often already invisible in the sense that it is hidden behind the abstraction of higher level languages or user interfaces. But the definition of "low level" changes as more advanced software is created, so it's forever a moving target.
throwawayjava 9y ago
Another explanation: electricity is dangerous. So are machines. If you can automate some portion of your desk job, you're a much more valuable employee. The same is theoretically true for factory workers and mechanical/electrical engineers, but the barrier to creating your own factory automation is extremely high. And no one is going to let a random factory worker tweak/augment expensive machinery in a novel and untested way. Whereas an Excel macro or quick Python script for parsing some data and doing some computations or sending some emails is very accessible and totally acceptable in many environments.
marcosdumay 9y ago
Not exactly "fully invisible", but it got a much simpler interface than what we have any expectation of ever achieving with software. And some people still die because they used that interface wrongly.

userbinator 9y ago

I don't know in detail what it's like now, but when I was in school (decades ago...) those subjects were covered as part of physics. Whether the majority have retained that knowledge is a different matter, but it was definitely taught; I suppose the same would apply to programming if it were to become part of the mandatory curriculum.