3 ms·

So much this... The goal should be for programmers to provide tools with interfaces that one can use without actual knowledge of "the machine". Imagine drivin

by MrDosu 12y ago

So much this... The goal should be for programmers to provide tools with interfaces that one can use without actual knowledge of "the machine". Imagine driving a car would require you to have intimate knowledge of combustion engines, mechanics and the electronic systems therein vs just pedals + wheel.

jacquesm 12y ago
Every computer program ever written constitutes such a tool.
- mod 12y ago
  To add to this, I'm a developer and I have relatively little knowledge what is really happening with the machine. Where a layperson knows something like 0.1%, I know instead something like 1%. The level of detail exhibited by some in the recent "what happens when you type google.com and hit enter" thread made me further realize just how little I understand.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    That's most likely because you're 'late to the party'. I was lucky enough to be born just when all this stuff got underway so I saw it progress bit-by-bit in slow motion and over 3.5 decades I could absorb the changes. If you're dumped in on the deep end in 2015 or so then it can be a bit overwhelming, but keep the faith, it will all clear up in the longer term and you'll be so much better positioned to actually achieve something. Higher level stuff really is higher level, you get more done with less writing (even if that comes at a price in the form of a loss of contact with the lower layers).
  - MrDosu 12y ago
    This is a bit scary. I would not be able to write functional programs without knowing at least some of the infrastructure the code runs on (albeit not down to the nand gate). If I would be a dick I would guess web programming :P.
    - qu4z-2 12y ago
      If I would be a dick, I'd guess you haven't been in the field long enough to know everything that you don't know? Even if you're, say, a competent assembly programmer, I'm sure there are plenty of areas you're unfamiliar with. Perhaps cryptography, the details of JIT compilers, or BGP? There's just a lot to know. Or perhaps you're just unusually talented.
      - jacquesm 12y ago
        Don't be dicks, either of you.
        MrDosu 12y ago
        Word. Tried snarky sarcasm, forgot how people react differently, failed. Apologize!
klibertp 12y ago
> Imagine driving a car would require you to have intimate knowledge of combustion engines, mechanics and the electronic systems So, for this analogy to be fair, we'd need to have computers which you can't operate unless you know how to use transistors to build logic gates, how to build your CPU out of those, how this CPU executes instructions and so on. Of course, that's "vs just keyboard and mouse". Of course there's room for improvement, but current computers are not orders of magnitude harder to use than cars. I'd say that they never were, but right now they're not for sure: 3 years old kid won't drive a car, but he can have some meaningful and fun time with a tablet. Learning programming is secondary issue in my opinion. A "new literacy" is something else: it's ability to stop and think about how the pieces fall together, how they work, how you can make them do what you want. Programming is certainly a way of learning this ability, but it's also full of pointless ritual and irrelevant things and operates on completely wrong - for the normal user - level of abstraction. I don't know what is the most efficient way of teaching this to people, but I strongly believe that we need to teach them this. If we have no better way, then let it even be via programming, it's still better than nothing.
- MrDosu 12y ago
  Ofc there is some amount of hyperbole in the analogy. Computers ARE orders of magnitude harder to use than cars. A car has (at the simplified level) a single wheel that goes either left or right and 3 pedals. The hardest concept relating to hardware is what a gear is and why you need to shift it (among a few others). It is correct though that software CAN be more simple than that in their use. Those pieces of software tend not to solve complex or any problems in our real world though. When it comes to 'coding as literacy' this has not much to do with using a highly simplified UI. It has to do with the fact that if I want to use most of the features of the machine we call PC, you HAVE to be able to program. Sticking with the car analogy my kid can have great fun if I show her how to use the horn in the car. It will not allow her to do anything meaningful with the car (getting from A to B). All she can do is use the car as a toy. I agree with you on the core problem though. Things are abstraced away from everyone in our daily lives in such a way, that people sometimes are unable to be 'precise'. By that i mean the ability to fully describe a problem and formulate an executable solution. I personally don't think programming is the solution to that. Personally I learned that concept in school in philosophy class.

by MrDosu 12y ago

jacquesm 12y ago

Every computer program ever written constitutes such a tool.

mod 12y ago
To add to this, I'm a developer and I have relatively little knowledge what is really happening with the machine. Where a layperson knows something like 0.1%, I know instead something like 1%. The level of detail exhibited by some in the recent "what happens when you type google.com and hit enter" thread made me further realize just how little I understand.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  That's most likely because you're 'late to the party'. I was lucky enough to be born just when all this stuff got underway so I saw it progress bit-by-bit in slow motion and over 3.5 decades I could absorb the changes. If you're dumped in on the deep end in 2015 or so then it can be a bit overwhelming, but keep the faith, it will all clear up in the longer term and you'll be so much better positioned to actually achieve something. Higher level stuff really is higher level, you get more done with less writing (even if that comes at a price in the form of a loss of contact with the lower layers).
- MrDosu 12y ago
  This is a bit scary. I would not be able to write functional programs without knowing at least some of the infrastructure the code runs on (albeit not down to the nand gate). If I would be a dick I would guess web programming :P.
  - qu4z-2 12y ago
    If I would be a dick, I'd guess you haven't been in the field long enough to know everything that you don't know? Even if you're, say, a competent assembly programmer, I'm sure there are plenty of areas you're unfamiliar with. Perhaps cryptography, the details of JIT compilers, or BGP? There's just a lot to know. Or perhaps you're just unusually talented.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Don't be dicks, either of you.
      - MrDosu 12y ago
        Word. Tried snarky sarcasm, forgot how people react differently, failed. Apologize!

klibertp 12y ago

> Imagine driving a car would require you to have intimate knowledge of combustion engines, mechanics and the electronic systems So, for this analogy to be fair, we'd need to have computers which you can't operate unless you know how to use transistors to build logic gates, how to build your CPU out of those, how this CPU executes instructions and so on. Of course, that's "vs just keyboard and mouse". Of course there's room for improvement, but current computers are not orders of magnitude harder to use than cars. I'd say that they never were, but right now they're not for sure: 3 years old kid won't drive a car, but he can have some meaningful and fun time with a tablet. Learning programming is secondary issue in my opinion. A "new literacy" is something else: it's ability to stop and think about how the pieces fall together, how they work, how you can make them do what you want. Programming is certainly a way of learning this ability, but it's also full of pointless ritual and irrelevant things and operates on completely wrong - for the normal user - level of abstraction. I don't know what is the most efficient way of teaching this to people, but I strongly believe that we need to teach them this. If we have no better way, then let it even be via programming, it's still better than nothing.

MrDosu 12y ago
Ofc there is some amount of hyperbole in the analogy. Computers ARE orders of magnitude harder to use than cars. A car has (at the simplified level) a single wheel that goes either left or right and 3 pedals. The hardest concept relating to hardware is what a gear is and why you need to shift it (among a few others). It is correct though that software CAN be more simple than that in their use. Those pieces of software tend not to solve complex or any problems in our real world though. When it comes to 'coding as literacy' this has not much to do with using a highly simplified UI. It has to do with the fact that if I want to use most of the features of the machine we call PC, you HAVE to be able to program. Sticking with the car analogy my kid can have great fun if I show her how to use the horn in the car. It will not allow her to do anything meaningful with the car (getting from A to B). All she can do is use the car as a toy. I agree with you on the core problem though. Things are abstraced away from everyone in our daily lives in such a way, that people sometimes are unable to be 'precise'. By that i mean the ability to fully describe a problem and formulate an executable solution. I personally don't think programming is the solution to that. Personally I learned that concept in school in philosophy class.