3 ms·

I am wary of making predictive generalizations, but I have been thinking about the effect of "just works" computers for roughly ten years. The robotics program

by Aelius 8y ago

I am wary of making predictive generalizations, but I have been thinking about the effect of "just works" computers for roughly ten years. The robotics program in my highschool folded after I left, in part because no one was left who could write the programming. Watching my nephew grow up on iPads and iPhones: I learned how to use computers by breaking them, and then fixing them. iOS doesn't let you screw it up, and there are too many addicting games to suck up all his time anyway. I'm considering teaching him some things now and giving him a cheap laptop or rPi, but I doubt he'd choose to use that over the silly endless games on iOS, or the bottomless pit that is YouTube.

dmoy 8y ago
You can make the same argument about basically any technology that has gotten more reliable, cheaper, easier, etc over the years. Cars is a big one. Going back farther, textiles. We don't spend a staggeringly large percentage of our time making and/or repairing our own clothes anymore. For the most part, clothes "just works", and the average person doesn't have to worry about it.
- peter_l_downs 8y ago
  Taking cars and textiles as an example, though, is pretty disheartening if you would like to see a future with a lot of computer programmers in it. Although taking the cynical view, as a young-ish programmer today it probably points to a world where your skills only get much more valuable over time, as there will be less competition from a younger cohort in the future...
- Green_man 8y ago
  I'm not sure thats a perfect analogy. in both those cases, the big change has often been machine aided manufacturing (especially with textiles), combined with lots of engineering/materials science. engineering and materials science has definitely aided the speed and effectiveness of computer hardware design as well (and anecdotally, people seem to be buying phones and laptops less often, they last longer), but that isn't true of software- we need (or the market demands) more software engineers than ever, afaik. and, as far as i am aware, we are still a ways out from machine aided software design.
  - munk-a 8y ago
    I disagree, modern textile workers probably aren't good at hand-carding wool, similarly modern software developers tend not to be good at writing hand-optimized assembly code. Sure, you _could_ do that and there are resources available to learn how to, but (except for some niche fields) there isn't a reason to do it. It isn't productive when a compiler can do a good enough (sometimes better) job quicker.
    - Green_man 8y ago
      That's a very good point, assembly does work as a good analogue for more primitive textile manufacturing. but as a CS student that hasn't yet learned assembly, is a programmer using a compiler so much faster as to be analogous to a spinning jenny? or a modern loom?
      - canhascodez 8y ago
        Assembly is one of the roots of computing, but so is lambda calculus. One might also argue for gates or boolean logic as fundamental concepts. Higher levels of abstraction are much, much more productive, but it's hard to compare like with like, since you are fundamentally measuring different quantities. Is a coder "faster" if their compiler generates much more code than necessary, or if they use optimizing flags to generate fewer instructions? The point of abstraction is rarely (if ever) speed, either of coding or code execution. Abstraction is about managing complexity. It's not that one couldn't write a prime-finding algorithm just as quickly and easily either way, it's that you can't write Facebook in assembly, and if you did, you would have to reinvent a ton of features from higher-level languages. Are programmers using HLLs more productive overall? Probably: more abstract code uses fewer symbols to express the same concept. However, you lose precision. One can say, "make me a sandwich", and assuming that you have sufficient access privileges, you will likely get some kind of sandwich, but since that's a pretty high-level description, you may not get the kind of sandwich you were expecting. Most of the time, it's easier and faster to just say (e.g.) `let x = 5` than to get bogged down in the details of what that might actually mean. However, if what you really want is `mov eax, 5`, then all of the other things that your HLL might be doing may not be a net benefit. Hopefully that thoroughly clarifimuddles the subject.
- NTDF9 8y ago
  > You can make the same argument about basically any technology that has gotten more reliable, cheaper, easier, etc over the years. Cars is a big one. This is really it. Kids grow up with Ipads as their computer and cloud storage. They dont see the need for local paths, desktops, memory, disk etc. Soon, computer programmers who actually understand what a computer does will become as rare as a IC engine engineer.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Yeah, but this spins into another problem - dependencies. Cars, be it 60 years ago or today, were and are things you buy and own. You may take them to specialists for maintenance, but you're generally responsible and in control of the overall operation of the machine. Computing today is ceding most of it to third-party services. Suddenly, your experience is dependent on multitude of companies (which fold as quickly as they pop up), and you don't own anything.
antt 8y ago
That people are pushing the RPi as a good alternative to a desktop is scary. The thing is a closed source mess with a single arm core hanging off a gpu. A beagle bone black with the XINU book is an amazing introduction to computers because you start from nothing and have a working system by the end of it.
- ZanyProgrammer 8y ago
  The RPI runs what is essentially bog standard Ubuntu with root access. What more could you possibly want? I swear the whining in this thread...
  - antt 8y ago
    Raspbian isn't 'bog standard ubunutu'. The beagle bone black on the other hand does run bog standard everything. The right tool for the right job, the rpi is amazingly cheap and disposable for hardware projects. It is not a good machine to teach computers on because it's architecture is pretty odd.
    - tokai 8y ago
      Well raspbian is Debian, so you're right in that it is not Ubuntu. What would you say is the substantial difference between Ubuntu for arm and x86?

by Aelius 8y ago

dmoy 8y ago

You can make the same argument about basically any technology that has gotten more reliable, cheaper, easier, etc over the years. Cars is a big one. Going back farther, textiles. We don't spend a staggeringly large percentage of our time making and/or repairing our own clothes anymore. For the most part, clothes "just works", and the average person doesn't have to worry about it.

peter_l_downs 8y ago
Taking cars and textiles as an example, though, is pretty disheartening if you would like to see a future with a lot of computer programmers in it. Although taking the cynical view, as a young-ish programmer today it probably points to a world where your skills only get much more valuable over time, as there will be less competition from a younger cohort in the future...
Green_man 8y ago
I'm not sure thats a perfect analogy. in both those cases, the big change has often been machine aided manufacturing (especially with textiles), combined with lots of engineering/materials science. engineering and materials science has definitely aided the speed and effectiveness of computer hardware design as well (and anecdotally, people seem to be buying phones and laptops less often, they last longer), but that isn't true of software- we need (or the market demands) more software engineers than ever, afaik. and, as far as i am aware, we are still a ways out from machine aided software design.
- munk-a 8y ago
  I disagree, modern textile workers probably aren't good at hand-carding wool, similarly modern software developers tend not to be good at writing hand-optimized assembly code. Sure, you _could_ do that and there are resources available to learn how to, but (except for some niche fields) there isn't a reason to do it. It isn't productive when a compiler can do a good enough (sometimes better) job quicker.
  - Green_man 8y ago
    That's a very good point, assembly does work as a good analogue for more primitive textile manufacturing. but as a CS student that hasn't yet learned assembly, is a programmer using a compiler so much faster as to be analogous to a spinning jenny? or a modern loom?
    - canhascodez 8y ago
      Assembly is one of the roots of computing, but so is lambda calculus. One might also argue for gates or boolean logic as fundamental concepts. Higher levels of abstraction are much, much more productive, but it's hard to compare like with like, since you are fundamentally measuring different quantities. Is a coder "faster" if their compiler generates much more code than necessary, or if they use optimizing flags to generate fewer instructions? The point of abstraction is rarely (if ever) speed, either of coding or code execution. Abstraction is about managing complexity. It's not that one couldn't write a prime-finding algorithm just as quickly and easily either way, it's that you can't write Facebook in assembly, and if you did, you would have to reinvent a ton of features from higher-level languages. Are programmers using HLLs more productive overall? Probably: more abstract code uses fewer symbols to express the same concept. However, you lose precision. One can say, "make me a sandwich", and assuming that you have sufficient access privileges, you will likely get some kind of sandwich, but since that's a pretty high-level description, you may not get the kind of sandwich you were expecting. Most of the time, it's easier and faster to just say (e.g.) `let x = 5` than to get bogged down in the details of what that might actually mean. However, if what you really want is `mov eax, 5`, then all of the other things that your HLL might be doing may not be a net benefit. Hopefully that thoroughly clarifimuddles the subject.
NTDF9 8y ago
> You can make the same argument about basically any technology that has gotten more reliable, cheaper, easier, etc over the years. Cars is a big one. This is really it. Kids grow up with Ipads as their computer and cloud storage. They dont see the need for local paths, desktops, memory, disk etc. Soon, computer programmers who actually understand what a computer does will become as rare as a IC engine engineer.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Yeah, but this spins into another problem - dependencies. Cars, be it 60 years ago or today, were and are things you buy and own. You may take them to specialists for maintenance, but you're generally responsible and in control of the overall operation of the machine. Computing today is ceding most of it to third-party services. Suddenly, your experience is dependent on multitude of companies (which fold as quickly as they pop up), and you don't own anything.

antt 8y ago

That people are pushing the RPi as a good alternative to a desktop is scary. The thing is a closed source mess with a single arm core hanging off a gpu. A beagle bone black with the XINU book is an amazing introduction to computers because you start from nothing and have a working system by the end of it.

ZanyProgrammer 8y ago
The RPI runs what is essentially bog standard Ubuntu with root access. What more could you possibly want? I swear the whining in this thread...
- antt 8y ago
  Raspbian isn't 'bog standard ubunutu'. The beagle bone black on the other hand does run bog standard everything. The right tool for the right job, the rpi is amazingly cheap and disposable for hardware projects. It is not a good machine to teach computers on because it's architecture is pretty odd.
  - tokai 8y ago
    Well raspbian is Debian, so you're right in that it is not Ubuntu. What would you say is the substantial difference between Ubuntu for arm and x86?