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"What makes programming so unique?" Programming isn't necessarily unique any more than any of the fields you mention are unique. "Why cannot we generalize?"

by j_baker 16y ago

"What makes programming so unique?" Programming isn't necessarily unique any more than any of the fields you mention are unique. "Why cannot we generalize?" ... but here's where you're stretching it a bit. I agree with you that programming isn't as unique as a lot of these blog posts make it out to be. But there's no ignoring the fact that different fields have different requirements. For example, I don't think that a good programmer necessarily has the skills to be a good teacher (unless it's a computer science teacher, and even then it's debatable). Computer science involves translating logic into code. Teaching requires you to make logic suitable for people less educated than yourself to understand. That's not to say that a good programmer couldn't learn to teach or vice versa. It's just that they're orthogonal skill sets.

jamesbritt 16y ago
"That's not to say that a good programmer couldn't learn to teach or vice versa. It's just that they're orthogonal skill sets." In college (for my CS degree) I had to take a technical writing class. I loved it. I knew next to nothing about the field when I started, but soon found the idea of translating complex ideas and concepts into more easily understood formats quite intriguing. It was, in some ways, much like programming. I came to appreciate how hard it is for some people to understand some ideas (a point later reinforced when I started tutoring), and learned ways to improve descriptions and presentation. It seemed to me that if you are involved in some geeky tech field it behooves you to learn how to communicate with Earthlings. Bizarrely, when it came time to pick a minor, my counselor made a comment to the effect that with a CS major I should be looking at, oh, a EE or ME minor sort of thing. Not something out in left field, such as tech writing. I hadn't yet told him that in fact that was the minor I was going to pursue. :) Well worth the time and effort; if you have great ideas but cannot adequately express them, you're losing.

by j_baker 16y ago

jamesbritt 16y ago

"That's not to say that a good programmer couldn't learn to teach or vice versa. It's just that they're orthogonal skill sets." In college (for my CS degree) I had to take a technical writing class. I loved it. I knew next to nothing about the field when I started, but soon found the idea of translating complex ideas and concepts into more easily understood formats quite intriguing. It was, in some ways, much like programming. I came to appreciate how hard it is for some people to understand some ideas (a point later reinforced when I started tutoring), and learned ways to improve descriptions and presentation. It seemed to me that if you are involved in some geeky tech field it behooves you to learn how to communicate with Earthlings. Bizarrely, when it came time to pick a minor, my counselor made a comment to the effect that with a CS major I should be looking at, oh, a EE or ME minor sort of thing. Not something out in left field, such as tech writing. I hadn't yet told him that in fact that was the minor I was going to pursue. :) Well worth the time and effort; if you have great ideas but cannot adequately express them, you're losing.