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This is an insightful article, although I don't necessarily agree with the view that "everyone" needs to know everything from first principles to be good at the

This is an insightful article, although I don't necessarily agree with the view that "everyone" needs to know everything from first principles to be good at their job. Talking about abstractions, during my past month, I was reading nand2tetris, and it's a compelling experience if you understand the exercise you are doing, which is not about building a computer from first principles; it's much more than that. It makes you really understand what's going on behind the layers of abstracting that have been raised. Sometimes, understanding every layer of complexity is impossible, but depending on the area you are in, we need at least to try to understand the roots of it. However, this is not for everyone; ask a musician if they are really in the weeds of why the instrument is producing music (the physics behind it!). They are probably aware that it's vibrating air, but, in general, they won't know the theory behind it. Everything is built on abstractions, and that's OK, with time we will add even more on top of what we have; now, the issue is when those abstractions lock you in with a mindset that prevents you from creating something new without relying on those same abstractions that help you build stuff. Many discoveries and inventions were made because they knew the layer of abstractions on top of it, and they just started again from scratch. Even Figma, the software, is built on a new core of concepts based on how the web was working back in the time [1] [1] https://madebyevan.com/figma/introducing-vector-networks/ https://madebyevan.com/figma/introducing-vector-networks/

EvanAnderson 3y ago
> ...ask a musician if they are really in the weeds of why the instrument is producing music (the physics behind it!). They are probably aware that it's vibrating air, but, in general, they won't know the theory behind it. A big difference is that, unlike computing, their instrument probably won't stop working because of some subtle change to physics introduced by a seemingly-unrelated change made to the universe by some other party in the musical instrument / air / molecules / atoms / quarks "stack". Theirs is a world with some assurance of stability. Ours is a field built upon shifting sands. Knowing what the foundations are that the edifice you've constructed sits upon allows you to affect repairs when it crumbles unexpectedly.
- pydry 3y ago
  Musical instruments can and do break for unknown reasons and it's exactly as reasonable to expect musicians to crack out their machine tools to fix them as it is to expect a javascript dev to fix a kernel bug. Computers are a relatively new invention. There are still people around from the times when knowing the entire stack from top to bottom was not just valuable but necessary. They worked during periods when abstractions were far leakier than they are today and far less reliable but also far simpler. Some of those people have persisted with the attitude that knowing the stack top to bottom is still necessary as the complexity of those stacks have grown in complexity geometrically. This does not signify wisdom, only age.
  - mejutoco 3y ago
    I think for the analogy to work either we compare: - a musician knowing how to fix their instrument vs a programmer knowing how to fix their keyboard/computer Or - a musician fixing some harmony, or progression vs a programmer fixing a bug in code Otherwise it does not feel like a fair comparison.
  - syndicatedjelly 3y ago
    To really press on the analogy some more: - Knowing how to change strings is comparable to knowing how to use the browser console - Knowing music theory is comparable to understanding programming language theory - Being competent on the fretboard is comparable to being competent in one programming language. Strumming/fingerpicking could be considered another language. --- And then for the controversial one... - Only knowing how to use music-making software is like only knowing how to use low-code applications for development. dodges tomatoes
- MonadIsPronad 3y ago
  > Knowing what the foundations are that the edifice you've constructed sits upon allows you to affect repairs when it crumbles unexpectedly. Finally get to use this bit of knowledge: 'effect' (the verb) was the word you wanted there.
  - 3y ago
tgv 3y ago
> However, this is not for everyone; ask a musician if they are really in the weeds of why the instrument is producing music (the physics behind it!). They are probably aware that it's vibrating air, but, in general, they won't know the theory behind it. Not a great metaphor. First, most instruments were invented by people who had no knowledge of the theory, not even of sound involving vibrating air. Second, many musicians do understand some of how their instrument works. It's not hard to understand how a guitar works, how to tune it, and how to fix a broken string. Most can't fix a broken body or neck, but they do understand why it stopped being playable. Hell, I knew a flutist who simply started to build her own recorders. Zero knowledge of physics, but after a few years producing great sounding period instruments.
figassis 3y ago
I think everyone needs to know everything they do professionally from first principles. And if you are to build abstractions, they also need to be based on first principles in order to be easy to reason about. Sometimes I'm learning a framework, and I'm in the part of "...you write this easy syntax and it outputs pure HTML!", which is great. But then the next line you read "also, when you use [obscure symbol], it does [obscure thing] in order to respect [obscure concept]". You have no idea what to do other than start googling those 3 new things, none of which are explained properly or at all in the current "super simple framework" documentation. I think even naming should make sense.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
aldanor 3y ago
> However, this is not for everyone; ask a musician if they are really in the weeds of why the instrument is producing music (the physics behind it!). They are probably aware that it's vibrating air, but, in general, they won't know the theory behind it. Knowing the nitty-gritty of the acoustics theory and the related math may not help you much as a musician... (that being said, if you're building a home studio or doing any mixing/mastering, you'll find it helpful to learn about physics of standing waves etc). However, the details of how frequencies come to form the well-tempered scale with all the tradeoffs and imperfections, and the low-level details of music theory, would be something many musician nerds would actually know.

EvanAnderson 3y ago

> ...ask a musician if they are really in the weeds of why the instrument is producing music (the physics behind it!). They are probably aware that it's vibrating air, but, in general, they won't know the theory behind it. A big difference is that, unlike computing, their instrument probably won't stop working because of some subtle change to physics introduced by a seemingly-unrelated change made to the universe by some other party in the musical instrument / air / molecules / atoms / quarks "stack". Theirs is a world with some assurance of stability. Ours is a field built upon shifting sands. Knowing what the foundations are that the edifice you've constructed sits upon allows you to affect repairs when it crumbles unexpectedly.

pydry 3y ago
Musical instruments can and do break for unknown reasons and it's exactly as reasonable to expect musicians to crack out their machine tools to fix them as it is to expect a javascript dev to fix a kernel bug. Computers are a relatively new invention. There are still people around from the times when knowing the entire stack from top to bottom was not just valuable but necessary. They worked during periods when abstractions were far leakier than they are today and far less reliable but also far simpler. Some of those people have persisted with the attitude that knowing the stack top to bottom is still necessary as the complexity of those stacks have grown in complexity geometrically. This does not signify wisdom, only age.
- mejutoco 3y ago
  I think for the analogy to work either we compare: - a musician knowing how to fix their instrument vs a programmer knowing how to fix their keyboard/computer Or - a musician fixing some harmony, or progression vs a programmer fixing a bug in code Otherwise it does not feel like a fair comparison.
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago
  To really press on the analogy some more: - Knowing how to change strings is comparable to knowing how to use the browser console - Knowing music theory is comparable to understanding programming language theory - Being competent on the fretboard is comparable to being competent in one programming language. Strumming/fingerpicking could be considered another language. --- And then for the controversial one... - Only knowing how to use music-making software is like only knowing how to use low-code applications for development. dodges tomatoes
MonadIsPronad 3y ago
> Knowing what the foundations are that the edifice you've constructed sits upon allows you to affect repairs when it crumbles unexpectedly. Finally get to use this bit of knowledge: 'effect' (the verb) was the word you wanted there.
- 3y ago

tgv 3y ago

> However, this is not for everyone; ask a musician if they are really in the weeds of why the instrument is producing music (the physics behind it!). They are probably aware that it's vibrating air, but, in general, they won't know the theory behind it. Not a great metaphor. First, most instruments were invented by people who had no knowledge of the theory, not even of sound involving vibrating air. Second, many musicians do understand some of how their instrument works. It's not hard to understand how a guitar works, how to tune it, and how to fix a broken string. Most can't fix a broken body or neck, but they do understand why it stopped being playable. Hell, I knew a flutist who simply started to build her own recorders. Zero knowledge of physics, but after a few years producing great sounding period instruments.

figassis 3y ago

I think everyone needs to know everything they do professionally from first principles. And if you are to build abstractions, they also need to be based on first principles in order to be easy to reason about. Sometimes I'm learning a framework, and I'm in the part of "...you write this easy syntax and it outputs pure HTML!", which is great. But then the next line you read "also, when you use [obscure symbol], it does [obscure thing] in order to respect [obscure concept]". You have no idea what to do other than start googling those 3 new things, none of which are explained properly or at all in the current "super simple framework" documentation. I think even naming should make sense.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

aldanor 3y ago

> However, this is not for everyone; ask a musician if they are really in the weeds of why the instrument is producing music (the physics behind it!). They are probably aware that it's vibrating air, but, in general, they won't know the theory behind it. Knowing the nitty-gritty of the acoustics theory and the related math may not help you much as a musician... (that being said, if you're building a home studio or doing any mixing/mastering, you'll find it helpful to learn about physics of standing waves etc). However, the details of how frequencies come to form the well-tempered scale with all the tradeoffs and imperfections, and the low-level details of music theory, would be something many musician nerds would actually know.