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Computer programs do nothing. It’s computers, i.e. actual hardware, which work. We forget this at our peril.
by teddyh 2y ago
Computer programs do nothing. It’s computers, i.e. actual hardware, which work. We forget this at our peril.
- krapp 2y agoIf computer programs do nothing, why do we need them?
- teddyh 2y agoA computer can run them, and thereby accomplish things.
- krapp 2y agoSo programs can affect the internal state of the computer, thus resulting in useful work being done which would otherwise not be done in the absence of said program. Which means programs do something, rather than nothing.
- teddyh 2y agoThis is like claiming books change the world. In one sense they do, but in a a bit more real sense it’s people reading books who change the world. A crucial distinction.
- teddyh 2y agoTo elaborate on the analogy: Books cannot change the world if they lie unread on a shelf or are confiscated or impounded and kept out of people’s hands. In the same way, software cannot be useful to you if your hardware will not run it. Therefore we cannot think that by being programmers making software, we are directly helping people; we can only help those people who can, and will, run our software.
- helpfulContrib 2y ago[dead]
- rhelz 2y agochuckle computer programs are the incantations we do to make computers do what we want. Quite a bit like shamans did incantations to get the world to do what they want. Only ours actually works. Or, it does if we can debug them.
- teddyh 2y agoOnly if you take computers for granted as a natural part of the world. Which you do at your peril.