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Coding requires a willingness to understand and manipulate systems made of unbreakable rules. Most people don't want to deal with such an uncompromising method

by jprete 2y ago

Coding requires a willingness to understand and manipulate systems made of unbreakable rules. Most people don't want to deal with such an uncompromising method of communication.

busterarm 2y ago
And then there are those of us who find computers to be more bearable than people... At least computers don't think it's their god-given right to treat you like garbage.
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  Did you not use Windows 95?
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  What percentage of web traffic today would you say is composed of bits that the user--if they bothered to inspect it--would prefer to not have anything to do with? I'd say it's more than half. Computers treat people like garbage all the time.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    you're right, but I have a hard time picturing the computer as having emotions to be able to treat me like garbage in the first place. you won't rm the file? sudo rm file! the computer could fight back and say access denied still because of extended attributes, but for some reason I don't equate poorly written software as being treated like garbage. I always imagine some hapless programmer is doing the best they could with the resources they have in the system they're under, it's just not very good but that's not their fault.
    - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
      I'm similarly sympathetic when I come across a buggy implementation. It's malicious design that I'm objecting to. But I suppose it's a bit silly to say that it's the computer that's treating me like garbage. It's just that someone else is in control of my computer, and they're treating me like garbage.
      - sim7c00 2y ago
        sadly these days, it seems a keen mind is only a machine's mind. People spend far to little time to understand what they are telling their poor computers to do. And look what happens, people start turning against them. Blaming them for their misdoing. It's like Blaming god, the government, a nation, family or a tribe. These are all made of humans. Human bad behavior is at the core of our suffering. Nothing else.
        __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
        I don't disagree substantively, but I do think there are uniquely modern aspects to the question of "am I enabling bad behavior right now?". It's not just ethics, it's education. Consider for instance the remote support features that Intel is so keen on advertising these days. Microcode level remote access is a small help for IT departments and a huge help for authoritarian regimes looking to spy on their people. But I don't think that most people are prepared to consider what they're enabling by paying Intel to continue to grow into a telescreen vendor. Sure, we shouldn't blame the computer's soul for bad behavior. But if it's being used as a weapon, it's not helpful to remove the computer from the conversation and say "well it's actually bad people." Mitigating bad behavior via computer means hacking that computer, and that starts with blaming it for the bad behavior to some degree.
  - sim7c00 2y ago
    its not computers who treat people like garbage. they do as they are instructed by humans, in all cases.
foobarchu 2y ago
Counterintuitively, it also requires a willingness to break what appear at first to be unbreakable rules. Most of the worst programmers I know seem to see their work as "how can I accomplish a task without breaking what I see as the rules", without having fully understood the system. That quickly turns into copypasta, extra layers of abstraction, over configurability, and many of the other plagues of programming.
- jprete 2y ago
  I think the two errors - imagining non-existent rules, and ignoring rules that exist - are related errors. The foundational skill is accepting that the machine is never wrong because the machine is also never "right", the machine doesn't actually make decisions, it's a construct of physics following a pile of physical laws and not a person to be negotiated with.

by jprete 2y ago

Coding requires a willingness to understand and manipulate systems made of unbreakable rules. Most people don't want to deal with such an uncompromising method of communication.

busterarm 2y ago

And then there are those of us who find computers to be more bearable than people... At least computers don't think it's their god-given right to treat you like garbage.

Mistletoe 2y ago
Did you not use Windows 95?
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
What percentage of web traffic today would you say is composed of bits that the user--if they bothered to inspect it--would prefer to not have anything to do with? I'd say it's more than half. Computers treat people like garbage all the time.
- fragmede 2y ago
  you're right, but I have a hard time picturing the computer as having emotions to be able to treat me like garbage in the first place. you won't rm the file? sudo rm file! the computer could fight back and say access denied still because of extended attributes, but for some reason I don't equate poorly written software as being treated like garbage. I always imagine some hapless programmer is doing the best they could with the resources they have in the system they're under, it's just not very good but that's not their fault.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    I'm similarly sympathetic when I come across a buggy implementation. It's malicious design that I'm objecting to. But I suppose it's a bit silly to say that it's the computer that's treating me like garbage. It's just that someone else is in control of my computer, and they're treating me like garbage.
    - sim7c00 2y ago
      sadly these days, it seems a keen mind is only a machine's mind. People spend far to little time to understand what they are telling their poor computers to do. And look what happens, people start turning against them. Blaming them for their misdoing. It's like Blaming god, the government, a nation, family or a tribe. These are all made of humans. Human bad behavior is at the core of our suffering. Nothing else.
      - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
        I don't disagree substantively, but I do think there are uniquely modern aspects to the question of "am I enabling bad behavior right now?". It's not just ethics, it's education. Consider for instance the remote support features that Intel is so keen on advertising these days. Microcode level remote access is a small help for IT departments and a huge help for authoritarian regimes looking to spy on their people. But I don't think that most people are prepared to consider what they're enabling by paying Intel to continue to grow into a telescreen vendor. Sure, we shouldn't blame the computer's soul for bad behavior. But if it's being used as a weapon, it's not helpful to remove the computer from the conversation and say "well it's actually bad people." Mitigating bad behavior via computer means hacking that computer, and that starts with blaming it for the bad behavior to some degree.
- sim7c00 2y ago
  its not computers who treat people like garbage. they do as they are instructed by humans, in all cases.

foobarchu 2y ago

Counterintuitively, it also requires a willingness to break what appear at first to be unbreakable rules. Most of the worst programmers I know seem to see their work as "how can I accomplish a task without breaking what I see as the rules", without having fully understood the system. That quickly turns into copypasta, extra layers of abstraction, over configurability, and many of the other plagues of programming.

jprete 2y ago
I think the two errors - imagining non-existent rules, and ignoring rules that exist - are related errors. The foundational skill is accepting that the machine is never wrong because the machine is also never "right", the machine doesn't actually make decisions, it's a construct of physics following a pile of physical laws and not a person to be negotiated with.