3 ms·
i think it's a matter of perspective. people's perspectives can be very different. it didn't hit me until i got really smashed one night and my vision became
by tokipin 18y ago
i think it's a matter of perspective. people's perspectives can be very different. it didn't hit me until i got really smashed one night and my vision became many times more detailed. the world looked beautiful. no doubt there are people that can see that clearly all the time, people who live in the world, as opposed to outside of it which is how it feels i am. those people are probably the ones who can "get" drawing, and who might wonder why it is that others don't get it
when it comes to programming however, i bet these people can confuse the letters on the screen for the program itself, or it might not be clear to them that the semantics of the language are rich and are more important for understanding it than its syntax is, and other fundamental misconceptions like that
i can see better if i put a lot of focus on it, but it would take practice to make it something i could readily call forth or sustain, and even then i don't know if i could see as clearly as when i'm drunk, or as clearly as someone for whom it is natural. going the other way, how do you show people what to look at when programming? i can give myself visual tasks like "try to perceive all of the individual blades of grass on the lawn at the same time," but what is an equivalent exercise for someone who finds programming difficult?
- kragen 18y agoMaybe this is missing the point, but have you gotten your vision tested? Maybe you're farsighted or nearsighted. I think the world looks a lot more beautiful when it's in sharp focus.
- tokipin 18y agoi'm very nearsighted, and use glasses. however the kind of detail i see when i'm very drunk is on a different level, regardless of whether i'm wearing glasses or not (like looking at things up close.) it might seem strange that you can see better than 20/20 (or whatever 'perfect' vision is,) but this is something that is independent of the apparatus of the eye. it's deeper, like the cognitive management of attention/focus i'm sure part of it is that i don't actually use my eyes much from day to day... which might be the reason i'm nearsighted to begin with. but even that much wasn't apparent to me before. though the same could be said of those who have trouble programming. maybe there is something they don't use a lot, and it atrophies over time? let me be clear. when i say i don't use my eyes much from day to day, i mean i spend most of my energy in my head and i don't really focus on my sight at all. it doesn't take much ocular prowess or precision to parse some text on a screen but who knows, maybe i'm loony. koo koo
- kragen 18y agoAha, cool. Thanks!