What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it • Hacker News Board

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#91

Post by a3n » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 4:45 PM UTC

skywhopper wrote: post #46

Anyone who says this: in the virtual world of computers, everything can be replicated, from complex physical phenomena to abstract ideas, and even your own mind. Does not understand computers well enough to be lecturing the world about the need for software "literacy". The assertion that computers can represent any of those things is a complete falsehood. Computers are great with complex mathematical models of physic…

Change replicated to represented or modeled, and it's a true and useful observation. Maybe the author believes "replicated," or maybe he just didn't find the right word that day.

In any case, if I change that word as I read it, it becomes a useful observation to me. Just because I'm reading an authors words doesn't mean I have to accept those words as-is. I just got a useful thought out of an incorrect statement. :)

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#92

Post by rtens » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 4:48 PM UTC

airesQ wrote: post #33

pttrsmrt wrote: post #6

At first glance, it seemed like yet another silicon-valley-neoliberlist-style lots of words and ideologies, but no code and practicalities. But it seems like OPs thesis has a more hands-on approach: http://zells.org/res/Zells_DiplomaThesis.pdf

From the 10mins I spend looking at it: - It seems some kind of language/computation-model. Loosely based on a "everything is an actor" model. - It did look goodish. I tried following the Fibonacci example, which sort of made sense (I got the impression that recursion is handled by creating new nodes/zells). The discussion chapter also seemed interesting. - It has that abstruse academic feel, where sometimes it is har…

- that's exactly what it is. And the way I see it, actors are an implementation of OOP (in it's original meaning) so I would stick with "everything in an object"

- thanks =)

- I had that same feeling while writing it, constantly balancing my own ignorance with an acceptable level of vagueness

- call me the over-the-top guy. But the way I see, your vision has to be grand, if not megalomaniac if you want the essence to survive the collision with reality

- seamlessly migrating networked objects are one of the lesser over-the-top ideas though

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#93

Post by jrochkind1 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 4:54 PM UTC

Yet another "If only Hypercard had been the future" dream.

I agree it would have been nice if it had been. But there are Reasons it didn't work out that way, and probably isn't gonna go there.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#94

Post by rtens » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 4:54 PM UTC

gmluke wrote: post #4

> Just as knowing why apples fall down and aeroplanes fly up, the citizens of the 21st century need to know that computers are not magical boxes but composed of dynamic models. In all honesty, I don't know why apples fall down and aeroplanes fly up. I just know that they do. No doubt that improving software literacy is a worthwhile goal, but I think the author hasn't made a strong case for it in the opening paragraph…

That's unfortunate since I put a lot of work in these paragraphs. I'd love to know what you think would make a better case for improving software literacy.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#95

Post by inimino » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

orclev wrote: post #66

Can we please just let this idea die. Almost since the day programming was invented there has been at least one person out there trying to dumb it down to work for the average person and it always fails. Computers are hard to program because they're complicated . Programming languages strike a balance between simplifying some aspects of that complexity and exposing enough of the inner workings to efficiently implemen…

It sounds like you really want programming to continue to be difficult.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#96

Post by jrochkind1 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 4:58 PM UTC

coderjames wrote: post #24

>To fix this, we need to increase the currently tiny number of people who are able to write, modify, combine and share software. We need a tool that makes writing software easy and fun, and accessible to everyone. A tool that enables software literacy. Global access to niche knowledge doesn't seem like an effective use of the world's time to me. Let's look at this same idea, but replace "develop software" with "perfo…

I don't think it's a good analogy.

The typical U.S resident interacts with or otherwise has their life significantly effected by software not only every single day, but likely nearly _every single minute_.

The same is not true of brain surgery -- it's probably not even true of 'medicine' in general.

I absolutely agree with the OP that being an empowered individual in this environment absolutely requires some degree of 'computational literacy', and optimally would involve nearly every person, yes, actually knowing how to write software to some extent, the more the better.

I don't agree this is realistically going to happen though. The Hypercard future is not the road we went down. I do think this has pretty major unfortunate impacts on the degree of alienation and loss of control most people are likely to continue to experience in our highly digital society though.

But I think the best thing we can do right now is focus on some notion of accessible "computational literacy" within the present actually existing environment, not thinking we're going to get everyone to the point of being able to build actually-useful software. But they still can _understand_ software better. A hypercard-like learning environment might be useful for this. But it's unlikely to change the face of software development any time soon.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#97

Post by rtens » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 4:59 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #7

gmluke wrote: post #4

> Just as knowing why apples fall down and aeroplanes fly up, the citizens of the 21st century need to know that computers are not magical boxes but composed of dynamic models. In all honesty, I don't know why apples fall down and aeroplanes fly up. I just know that they do. No doubt that improving software literacy is a worthwhile goal, but I think the author hasn't made a strong case for it in the opening paragraph…

One of the most common challenges that I see engineers face is to effectively empathize with the user. When you know a lot about something, you just see it in a fundamentally different way. This makes it difficult to focus on making it easy for the user to do what they want, not what you think they should want. When I drive my car, I just want to get from point A to point B while listening to a podcast. I don't care…

In the (proximate) words of Alan Kay: "Giving people what they want is marketing, given them what they need is education." I'm more interested in the latter.

But I do very much agree that using a computer should not require any idea about how they function. But that's for using a computer like a tool. For me, computers are not mere tools but a medium. So what you wanna do is to express yourself with computers. And for that you need to know how to do it.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#98

Post by rtens » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 5:05 PM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #10

> Just as knowing why apples fall down and aeroplanes fly up, the citizens of the 21st century need to know that computers are not magical boxes but composed of dynamic models. I'm not sure most of the public could explain why gravity works, or how an airplane actually gets in the sky. This is because most people are not inquisitive by nature, they generally take things at face value without questioning why. This kin…

That's a nice example since nobody can explain how gravity works. It's the least understood force in the universe =)

I agree that most people are not inquisitive but I don't think it's by nature since most children I met were very very inquisitive. So my approach is to make it easy to stay a tinkerer.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#99

Post by rtens » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 5:08 PM UTC

orclev wrote: post #66

Can we please just let this idea die. Almost since the day programming was invented there has been at least one person out there trying to dumb it down to work for the average person and it always fails. Computers are hard to program because they're complicated . Programming languages strike a balance between simplifying some aspects of that complexity and exposing enough of the inner workings to efficiently implemen…

https://youtu.be/8pTEmbeENF4?t=93

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#100

Post by rtens » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 5:11 PM UTC

dustingetz wrote: post #40

Hi rtens, I would like a concrete (not abstract) explanation of what a cell is and how to compose an application with them; your docs are very abstract. Perhaps a hello world application?

The thesis mentioned elsewhere contains some concrete examples but my goal with the manifesto was to get to the root of the problem I'm trying to solve which is quite abstract indeed. I do not have a document yet that visualizes what I want to build but I'm working on that. I'll post updates on twitter.