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The Eve programming language project is winding down

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Re: The Eve programming language project is winding down

#141

Post by pjmlp »

stevekemp wrote: post #134
pjmlp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What helped me to learn programming as a 10 year old child, was the 80's programming books targeted at children. Always full of drawings, or little stories, and along the process I got introduced to BASIC, Z80 Assembly and all the intricacies of Spectrum hardware. I used to think those books were gone, but they seem to have come back regarding Arduino and Rasperry Pi programming. Just focusing on Python and Scratch n…

Scroll down to the bottom of this page: https://usborne.com/browse-books/features/computer-and-codin... Just seeing those covers gave me a huge nostalgia-trip, from my own time programming the ZX Spectrum in the 80s. (First in BASIC, then in Z80 assembly via the fine manual.)

Lovely!

Have you also used the Input magazines?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_(magazine)

Re: The Eve programming language project is winding down

#142

Post by ilaksh »

They made some really cool tools. The tools did not end up being a financial success or mindblowingly popular like a mainstream programming language, but they were still relatively popular. In that a lot of people at least know what it is. Most projects, no one even knows they exist.

Don't confuse popularity with merit in general, or not becoming massively popular with not being successful.

Re: The Eve programming language project is winding down

#143

Post by jononor »

exikyut wrote: post #132
Tom4hawk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is much bigger problem: > because my teacher was incapable of explaining it

Education is broken, and not "impulse-fixable", ie it will require years of collective concerted effort to affect change, if it is ever fixed at all. "A dad who knows ____ and can teach it" is, on the other hand, a practically-attainable real-world solution.

Is it? Seems like pure luck, not like we choose our parents?

Re: The Eve programming language project is winding down

#144

Post by kamaal »

ModernMech wrote: post #33
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> . How many people in the world have the IQ to write a program of say 100 lines that does something useful? Have the IQ necessary? Probably 90-95%. Have the training? Significantly lower. The training required consists of both being taught a language/medium to express thought it, and being taught a structured cause and event method of thinking. There's this incredibly pervasive view in a lot of areas that programmin…

This is actually the thesis behind Eve. Humans are incredible problem solvers, and we did it for millennia without computers. Computers are great tools for problem solving, but for many problems they are obtuse not because they are inherently hard, but because we have made them unnecessarily so. Take away all that ancillary complexity, and you're left with a tool and the essence of a problem. Most reasonably intellig…

>>Humans are incredible problem solvers, and we did it for millennia without computers.

Some humans are incredible problem solvers. Most are not, and most importantly don't want to be.

Re: The Eve programming language project is winding down

#145

Post by convolvatron »

linkmotif wrote: post #106
jonathanedwards wrote: post #32

We need to have a conversation about the possible paths to make programming more widely accessible. Chris saw the problem clearly and tried to fix it. Respect. I am most impressed with the number of iterations he was able to crank in the context of a startup. But ultimately a startup may not be the best place to start, because low-end programming is not a short-term growth play. We have to play the long game.

I think the conversation we should have is why we make everything seem so hard. What a bunch of hooey. In 5th grade everyone talked about how Algebra was hard. When I got to Algebra, it was pretty easy. I was very surprised! Of course my dad had to explain it to me, because my teacher was incapable of explaining it. 10th grade, same thing with calculus. Thank god my dad knew calculus and was patient. Because my teach…

programming is not impossible. a lot of us do it. maybe as you say more people should instead of believing it to be impossible.

but most of us that do are pretty frustrated at the how much time it takes, and how many artificial concepts we have to become accustomed to.

compared to the systems we use, the fundamentals of information processing seem really quite simple.

maybe, there is a way of describing simple programs that doesn't require months or years to master. I certainly wish personally that little ideas that occur daily didn't take weeks to realize....and I'm pretty sure given the simplicity of some o those notions that there isn't anything fundamental that requires that amount of brute force work.

and if there were a system, that cut a bit more quickly to the chase - maybe programming would become a useful tool for people that don't have the time or temperament to spend a couple months learning how.

Re: The Eve programming language project is winding down

#146

Post by smt88 »

linkmotif wrote: post #106
jonathanedwards wrote: post #32

We need to have a conversation about the possible paths to make programming more widely accessible. Chris saw the problem clearly and tried to fix it. Respect. I am most impressed with the number of iterations he was able to crank in the context of a startup. But ultimately a startup may not be the best place to start, because low-end programming is not a short-term growth play. We have to play the long game.

I think the conversation we should have is why we make everything seem so hard. What a bunch of hooey. In 5th grade everyone talked about how Algebra was hard. When I got to Algebra, it was pretty easy. I was very surprised! Of course my dad had to explain it to me, because my teacher was incapable of explaining it. 10th grade, same thing with calculus. Thank god my dad knew calculus and was patient. Because my teach…

> "One thing I’ve noticed is that nothing humans have invented or discovered is hard."

This is one of the most absurd and arrogant statements I've ever read on HN.

If this is true, why don't you read some textbooks for a few years and start flawlessly performing surgery? Why don't you write a world-renowned novel?

> "A child can learn Python or JavaScript. You just have to show them that it’s cool. But instead most adults show kids that sports, video games and Netflix are cool."

Lots of kids know Python and JavaScript. They may think it's cool or not. They're right either way because nothing is objectively cool.

I'm a programmer and I myself see it as a means to an end (a fun one, sure). It's not meaningful to most people, not any more than plumbing or chess is meaningful to most people.

People don't only fail to learn hard programming languages because they're lazy or haven't unlocked the magic of programming. Many of them just don't care to learn them or enjoy them, and that's fine.

Re: The Eve programming language project is winding down

#147

Post by TuringTest »

indubitable wrote: post #108
jonathanedwards wrote: post #32

We need to have a conversation about the possible paths to make programming more widely accessible. Chris saw the problem clearly and tried to fix it. Respect. I am most impressed with the number of iterations he was able to crank in the context of a startup. But ultimately a startup may not be the best place to start, because low-end programming is not a short-term growth play. We have to play the long game.

I'm unsure programming can be made accessible, and there's a very specific reason for this. Simplifying the medium of something (in other words making it so somebody could genuinely learn a programming language, from nothing, in 5 minutes) does not necessarily make task implementation any easier. Consider writing. It's something that anybody of mean intelligence is more than capable of. And writing a novel requires n…

> Simplifying the medium of does not necessarily make task implementation any easier.

Except when it does. Programming in an IDE with code completion, IntelliSense, on-line help and an attached debugger is easier than going all macho developer and programming exclusively in raw text with the pico editor, using println traces as debug.

Sometimes, merely reducing the cycles that the human brain wastes on interacting with the medium makes the whole task simpler. If you don't force the user to think about building a program, they are freed to think about solving a problem.

Re: The Eve programming language project is winding down

#148

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

linkmotif wrote: post #106
jonathanedwards wrote: post #32

We need to have a conversation about the possible paths to make programming more widely accessible. Chris saw the problem clearly and tried to fix it. Respect. I am most impressed with the number of iterations he was able to crank in the context of a startup. But ultimately a startup may not be the best place to start, because low-end programming is not a short-term growth play. We have to play the long game.

I think the conversation we should have is why we make everything seem so hard. What a bunch of hooey. In 5th grade everyone talked about how Algebra was hard. When I got to Algebra, it was pretty easy. I was very surprised! Of course my dad had to explain it to me, because my teacher was incapable of explaining it. 10th grade, same thing with calculus. Thank god my dad knew calculus and was patient. Because my teach…

From teaching programming for some time to "ordinary" people, there is a difference in programming languages. Many have accidental complexity, like compilation, tooling, linking, braces and APIs. With some, like LOGO and BASIC, I have much better success rates in making people understand programming. I produced a lot of cargo cult developers when I've started with Python or Java.

Re: The Eve programming language project is winding down

#149

Post by dkersten »

lloeki wrote: post #140
linkmotif wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the conversation we should have is why we make everything seem so hard. What a bunch of hooey. In 5th grade everyone talked about how Algebra was hard. When I got to Algebra, it was pretty easy. I was very surprised! Of course my dad had to explain it to me, because my teacher was incapable of explaining it. 10th grade, same thing with calculus. Thank god my dad knew calculus and was patient. Because my teach…

> Today unfortunately we have a culture of “you can’t, it’s hard, it’s not for you, other people do that.” "The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people." https://www.youtu…

Lately, I’ve been learning sleight of hand and card magic and I’ve seen this mentioned in the magic community too. It’s advised not to teach friends who ask you to teach them, instead you should point them in the direction of self study resources (books, courses, search keywords) and let them figure it out for themselves. The reason given for this is that many people want to learn just so they know how something is done, but are not motivated enough to actually put the hard work (practice) in. By learning how it’s done without practicing, they ruin magic for themselves (you see this a lot in YouTube comments, where people don’t enjoy a routine for the skill and performance that it is but instead feel the need to figure it out and reveal it to others, often in a derogatory way “I figured it out, it’s shit” but of course they figured it out if they can watch frame by frame over and over...)

Basically what I’m attempting to say is that the brick wall is a useful tool to make sure that the people who want to learn without putting any work or practice in are filtered out from the ones who want to learn and do put the practice in.

I recently said to someone that I believe that (almost; obviously disabilities and such exist) anyone can learn (almost) anything, all it takes is three things:

1. Motivation. You have to want to learn it. In the in text of learning to program, I do believe almost anyone can learn it, but many people have no interest in programming and they will struggle if they try to learn.

2. Practice. It takes time to get good at anything. If you don’t put the time in, you will struggle.

3. A good teacher. Sometimes even with motivation and practice, some things are still really hard. A good teacher can break things down or give you a different perspective. A good teacher makes a massive difference. You don’t always need a teacher (good or otherwise), but some people will. Sadly, not all teachers are good and not everyone has one.

Re: The Eve programming language project is winding down

#150

Post by zubairq »

adwn wrote: post #136
zubairq wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They influenced swift and a whole bunch of other interactive IDEs with the research they did. Don’t use iPhone or Android if you don’t want to use these new languages

> [...] if you don’t want to use these new languages I'm stumped – where is that suddenly coming from now? When did I say anything about not wanting to use Swift?

Light table/eve was one of the influences for swift
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