3 ms·

Is my mind wired completely different from the speaker's, or are all his analogies really that bad? I just couldn't bear it after 15 min, my mind hurt after all

by nnq 14y ago

Is my mind wired completely different from the speaker's, or are all his analogies really that bad? I just couldn't bear it after 15 min, my mind hurt after all the magic wells / documents / princesses / programs - they pushed my intuitions in the wrong directions and then made me feel like I have to fight my own thoughts to turn my mind to what he was explaining. He gets to the idea of Racket as a platform for DSLs in such a convoluted way... I'm really sorry for his students, at least if they have my "kind of mind"! On the side, I find Rich Hickey's and other Clojure videos very inspiring and atuned to my "intuitions" (that's how you sell a Lisp!) and same for the SICP lectures from the 80's with their "processes as spirits inside the computer" metaphors.

soegaard 14y ago
Can you think of a different three level analogy?
- nnq 14y ago
  Well, my first shot while keeping it in the myth and magic realm: level 0 (the "word processor" or manipulating data with not programmable tools): you are wizard's apprentice - and you clean your room by using the tools yourself (as real world brooms and scrubbers are not "programmable" :) ) level 1 (the "programming language" or "programmable tools" or code level): you are a wizard now (or an apprentice that stole the master's wand or magic hat, something) and you use your wand to instruct/program the tools to do the cleaning for you according to your rules/program level 3 (either meta-programmer or dsl or language for building languages or the code-as-data level): you are now a master wizard that can control other people and even other wizards that can in turn control other wizards and so on... (you have a language for writing languages or, in fact, any language that can treat code as data because you can now use it to make other languages) ...if you're looking for some imagery for it, master Walt's cartoon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSTWy25hRiI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSTWy25hRiI is pgood inspiration for level 1 (especially if you want to emphasize how "hard" programming is), but you'll have to look for yourself for level 0 and 3 images
  - 6cxs2hd6 14y ago
    Does that mean soegaard is a level 3 master wizard -- since he caused you to make this alternate analogy? ;)
- nnq 14y ago
  ...or basically anything else that transmits the ideas of processes, or things that happen and programs/instructions - not static things like wells and castles and dumb actors (princesses), that make me think more of OOP, or the totally "incomputable" for me idea of "granting a wish".

by nnq 14y ago

soegaard 14y ago

Can you think of a different three level analogy?

nnq 14y ago
Well, my first shot while keeping it in the myth and magic realm: level 0 (the "word processor" or manipulating data with not programmable tools): you are wizard's apprentice - and you clean your room by using the tools yourself (as real world brooms and scrubbers are not "programmable" :) ) level 1 (the "programming language" or "programmable tools" or code level): you are a wizard now (or an apprentice that stole the master's wand or magic hat, something) and you use your wand to instruct/program the tools to do the cleaning for you according to your rules/program level 3 (either meta-programmer or dsl or language for building languages or the code-as-data level): you are now a master wizard that can control other people and even other wizards that can in turn control other wizards and so on... (you have a language for writing languages or, in fact, any language that can treat code as data because you can now use it to make other languages) ...if you're looking for some imagery for it, master Walt's cartoon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSTWy25hRiI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSTWy25hRiI is pgood inspiration for level 1 (especially if you want to emphasize how "hard" programming is), but you'll have to look for yourself for level 0 and 3 images
- 6cxs2hd6 14y ago
  Does that mean soegaard is a level 3 master wizard -- since he caused you to make this alternate analogy? ;)
nnq 14y ago
...or basically anything else that transmits the ideas of processes, or things that happen and programs/instructions - not static things like wells and castles and dumb actors (princesses), that make me think more of OOP, or the totally "incomputable" for me idea of "granting a wish".