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This is the issue at the heart of most architecture and language/idiom arguments. We're meat bags selected for avoiding predators, telling stories around a cam

This is the issue at the heart of most architecture and language/idiom arguments. We're meat bags selected for avoiding predators, telling stories around a campfire, and poking things with a stick and we're trying to reason about and craft functioning complex systems. Until the machines take over, the optimal language or architecture will be the one your team can both make sense of and employ with relative ease, full stop.

telesilla 7y ago
Your reply is exactly what I needed as ammunition to people who don't see how machines can really help us in the future - if you don't mind, I'll paraphrase this comment! Too many people I talk to who aren't computer programmers but maybe, designers or architects who have been to a few conferences, don't believe there is revolution yet to come.
- pmarreck 7y ago
  I'm a 47 year old programmer who doesn't think a revolution is yet to come because I actually think programming is far more creative in nature than we can ever give to a machine. Not that there won't be tools to assist the human programmers, but the robot uprising will never occur until we can at least answer the very basic question of why will the robots care, and how exactly, in some non-hand-wavey fashion, will they get creative about solving novel problems? Consider this: You can write a genetic algorithm maker which will randomly iterate through all possible abstract syntax tree morphs and then run a test that evaluates whether the code "performs better" as a solution to some given need, and eventually you might strike upon some novel way of solving a problem through pure randomness. But here's the thing: The ultimate arbitrator of "what is better" will always be a human and the ultimate agent of "need" is a human as well. Machines just don't "need" things, like a faster way to ray-trace so your videogame open-world simulation is more immersive, or even a nicer GUI, much less a better way to make money... People need all these things, and people evaluate whether the machine reduces those needs. Machines DNGAF.
  - quickthrower2 7y ago
    When people say to me eventually computers will program themselves and I’ll be out of a job, I think that’ll be the least of our worries, as humans will become redundant.
    - firethief 7y ago
      I like to say that programming is the last job that will be automated. To normal people it's a turn of phrase; tech people understand that I'm literally referring to the impending end of life as we know it.
- ryanmarsh 7y ago
  Please do. I’ve used it in conference talks.
orbital-decay 7y ago
This is a fundamental operation in most engineering disciplines related to human interaction: reducing the system (the designer's PoV) to a particular path through that system (the user's PoV), constrained by cognitive capabilities of the user. The designer sees a graph of entities and relationships, the user only needs to navigate it with the least effort. This is applicable to everything, from the structural design of a rocket (a structural engineer only needs the specs and the load profile for the specific part, not the entire rocket internals) to videogame level design (different paths taken by players through a location).
cableshaft 7y ago
Oooff, that one hit home. Maybe I'm in the wrong line of work.

telesilla 7y ago

Your reply is exactly what I needed as ammunition to people who don't see how machines can really help us in the future - if you don't mind, I'll paraphrase this comment! Too many people I talk to who aren't computer programmers but maybe, designers or architects who have been to a few conferences, don't believe there is revolution yet to come.

pmarreck 7y ago
I'm a 47 year old programmer who doesn't think a revolution is yet to come because I actually think programming is far more creative in nature than we can ever give to a machine. Not that there won't be tools to assist the human programmers, but the robot uprising will never occur until we can at least answer the very basic question of why will the robots care, and how exactly, in some non-hand-wavey fashion, will they get creative about solving novel problems? Consider this: You can write a genetic algorithm maker which will randomly iterate through all possible abstract syntax tree morphs and then run a test that evaluates whether the code "performs better" as a solution to some given need, and eventually you might strike upon some novel way of solving a problem through pure randomness. But here's the thing: The ultimate arbitrator of "what is better" will always be a human and the ultimate agent of "need" is a human as well. Machines just don't "need" things, like a faster way to ray-trace so your videogame open-world simulation is more immersive, or even a nicer GUI, much less a better way to make money... People need all these things, and people evaluate whether the machine reduces those needs. Machines DNGAF.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  When people say to me eventually computers will program themselves and I’ll be out of a job, I think that’ll be the least of our worries, as humans will become redundant.
  - firethief 7y ago
    I like to say that programming is the last job that will be automated. To normal people it's a turn of phrase; tech people understand that I'm literally referring to the impending end of life as we know it.
ryanmarsh 7y ago
Please do. I’ve used it in conference talks.

orbital-decay 7y ago

This is a fundamental operation in most engineering disciplines related to human interaction: reducing the system (the designer's PoV) to a particular path through that system (the user's PoV), constrained by cognitive capabilities of the user. The designer sees a graph of entities and relationships, the user only needs to navigate it with the least effort. This is applicable to everything, from the structural design of a rocket (a structural engineer only needs the specs and the load profile for the specific part, not the entire rocket internals) to videogame level design (different paths taken by players through a location).

cableshaft 7y ago

Oooff, that one hit home. Maybe I'm in the wrong line of work.