Dispelling myths about the autistic programmer
gamasutra.com
Dispelling myths about the autistic programmer
1–10 of 172 posts
Re: Dispelling myths about the autistic programmer
#2IMHO it is the problem of trying to make things black and white: either being diseases (or worse: used as an insult) or a super-power (or: an excuse). Usually it's a combination of special skills, and special needs (and things which are just different). As with almost every other psychological "deviation" from the norm. Hence "neurodiversity" not "neurosuperiority", or the traditional medical distinction between "healthy" and "ill" (and nothing beyond).
See e.g. http://crastina.se/autistic-traits-science-and-the-nerd-ster..., especially its message:
> Yet, it is good to be aware of the neurodiversity and that other people can have different styles of thinking than ours, with their pros and cons. It’s not a challenge – it’s an opportunity to see word through various lenses! (As long as we respect other’s right to be different.)
Re: Dispelling myths about the autistic programmer
#3IMHO it is the problem of trying to make things black and white: either being diseases (or worse: used as an insult) or a super-power (or: an excuse). Usually it's a combination of special skills, and special needs (and things which are just different). As with almost every other psychological "deviation" from the norm. Hence "neurodiversity" not "neurosuperiority", or the traditional medical distinction between "hea…
This is a healthy attitude I think. Like anything, autism comes with trade-offs.
Re: Dispelling myths about the autistic programmer
#4The problem is that the criteria for autism is very loose. If you restricted your search to only low functioning autistic savants then it might be harder to find someone like this.
But that doesn't mean there isn't an autistic savant who is a great programmer/computer scientist.
In the end this is a game for monkeys and typewriters.
Re: Dispelling myths about the autistic programmer
#5What's the myth that's being "dispelled"?
I see the "Alex St. John's infamous PowerPoint" image, pasted in the article, as more valuable than the entire article. St John is harsh an direct, and seems to contain more objective true than the entire article.
Maybe another trait related to high-IQ+autism is a profound disregard for political correctness. Is St.John diagnosed with autism?
Maybe the part of the brain dedicated to social-political "skills", in an Aspergers-diagnosed brain is really dedicated to abstraction processing or pattern recognition?
Of course that the lacking of social-political skill frees your mind to concentrate long hours on complex abstractions. You shun the "social" world, and then concentrate on the mathematical or algorithmic world, where the "entities" have interesting and also predictable behaviour.
Thanks for pointing me to the St.John article, it looks like a good read.
Re: Dispelling myths about the autistic programmer
#6What's the myth that's being "dispelled"? I see the "Alex St. John's infamous PowerPoint" image, pasted in the article, as more valuable than the entire article. St John is harsh an direct, and seems to contain more objective true than the entire article. Maybe another trait related to high-IQ+autism is a profound disregard for political correctness. Is St.John diagnosed with autism? Maybe the part of the brain dedic…
The fact is that people who are actually autistic struggle to gain employment anywhere, including as software developers.
The vast majority of programmers are not autistic. The stereotype that they are is damaging both to programmers (by typecasting them) and to autistic people (by ignoring their real challenges).
Re: Dispelling myths about the autistic programmer
#7Tell that to guys like Igor Sysoev, who outperformed averages by an order of magnitude due to autisticly intense attention to details.
Hint: a mild form of autism, what casuals call Asperger, given that one survived childhood constant bullying and confusion about its causes, is actually good to have.
Re: Dispelling myths about the autistic programmer
#8IMO, whether or not it's true that certain traits of autism make for better programmers is actually irrelevant -- it's not useful for that kind of generalization.
Not all high functioning autistics become great programmers, just as not all introverts are necessarily great programmers. And saying that "all" programmers share one or more of those things just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where you disenfranchise people who don't think they "fit".
Re: Dispelling myths about the autistic programmer
#9I fail to see the fallacy in the St John's presentation. The Gamasutra editorial seems to widen the discussion to ALL autistics, which is not what the original presentation was talking about. It then goes on to say that not all Autistics match the "holy grail". Well no shit, Sherlock.
Re: Dispelling myths about the autistic programmer
#10The point at issue doesn't seem to me to be whether autism is conducive to programming ability, but that someone is essentially arguing that a disability is a great means by which to take advantage of someone in a notoriously exploitative industry.