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I agree but consider that Homer, one of the greatest storytellers of all time, was most likely illiterate. I've also met people who are outstanding at computer

by jart 6y ago

I agree but consider that Homer, one of the greatest storytellers of all time, was most likely illiterate. I've also met people who are outstanding at computer science but struggle with coding. I just think they're different skills and the people who can do both know how smart and important they are. It's sometimes a source of discouragement when the aim is to teach coding as a form of literacy. I read a story once where this company a few decades ago tricked a group of secretaries into learning to code LISP because they didn't tell these women that what they were doing was programming. Similar to the airline ticket salespeople who used to do things like edit raw memory in their sabre terminals, which is something most programmers today would believe they're not smart enough to do. It's amazing how clever people are at figuring things out if we avoid thinking about technology labor with the classic division of labor assembly line model.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago
I seem to remember a similar using LISP story - not tricking people but they gave sales team / admin lisp tools because they did not have time to code the "proper ones" - and the employees (women) rebelled when people tried to take them away. I want to say it was ... wrote much of netscape then ran a nightclub ... memory like a sieve I have.
- EdwardCoffin 6y ago
  Rather than JWZ, you may be thinking of the Mailman system for customer service at Amazon in the early days, as recounted by Steve Yegge [1] [1] https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> I read a story once where this company a few decades ago tricked a group of secretaries into learning to code LISP because they didn't tell these women that what they were doing was programming. I'd like to read this if anyone can find it. :)
- kazinator 6y ago
  That was written by Richard Stallman, and is right on the GNU website: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html

by jart 6y ago

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

I seem to remember a similar using LISP story - not tricking people but they gave sales team / admin lisp tools because they did not have time to code the "proper ones" - and the employees (women) rebelled when people tried to take them away. I want to say it was ... wrote much of netscape then ran a nightclub ... memory like a sieve I have.

EdwardCoffin 6y ago
Rather than JWZ, you may be thinking of the Mailman system for customer service at Amazon in the early days, as recounted by Steve Yegge [1] [1] https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

> I read a story once where this company a few decades ago tricked a group of secretaries into learning to code LISP because they didn't tell these women that what they were doing was programming. I'd like to read this if anyone can find it. :)

kazinator 6y ago
That was written by Richard Stallman, and is right on the GNU website: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html