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Programming language notation is a barrier to entry

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Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry

#71

Post by christiansakai »

ClikeX wrote: post #53
christiansakai wrote: post #43

Anecdote, my first programming language was Ruby and it was super confusing without the braces. I then found JavaScript and then it clicked because of the braces (though now I have no problem doing Ruby and Python or Rust). and I am not the only one saying this.

I actually had the reverse. Started in PHP and C# before I went into Ruby. And the Ruby notation just clicked a lot better for me. I later went back to bracked notation and never really had a problem anymore. Having each bracket combination be coloured uniquely helps a lot too.

Ruby had a slogan like "programmer's best choice" or some kind, and you can imagine I was so discouraged that I was too dumb for Ruby lol.

Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry

#72

Post by hvidgaard »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #19

Lowering barriers of entry to programming considered harmful to career programmers. If you support it without being manager level or above, you are harming yourself.

People able to program reasonably well, are not hindered by learning the syntax. Lowering the barrier is only going to bring in more people who are fundamentally unable to think algorithmically. If you are a manager you do not want those people to work for you, and if you are a programmer those people make you look better.

Of all the people I have tutored thus far, if they struggled with a language like Java or C#, trying to program with Scratch was just as hard for them. Taking syntax completely away and making it visual did not make a difference.

Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry

#74

Post by beagle3 »

Izkata wrote: post #70
beagle3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone remember all the different ways music was represented as they grew up? What about guitar tabs? I remember simplified math as a kid. I don't remember different notations for math and music as a kid... Music was always sheet music, even when I learned classical guiter; Chord names were "procedures", at times spelled out, and sometimes only referenced. Guitar tabs exist, but were only for people who wanted to p…

Another math example: 1) First learning multiplication with an "x", as in "4 x 3 = 12". 2) Then in algebra switching to " * " (dot) to avoid ambiguity with x-as-a-variable. 3) Later learning that " * " wasn't multiplication but actually dot product - it just happened to do the same thing with two scalars.

Weird.

1) When I grew up, multiplication and the letter X were styled very differently in books so that that was never ever a confusion.

2) The switch to dot, was NOT to avoid ambiguity, but to shorten stuff (IIRC we did that when we learned order of operations and started solving simple equations - writing "4 (dot) a" instaed of "4 (cross) a" -- and then just "4a" but multiplications still appear often among parentheses - they were not ALL replaced with dot.

3) That's simply wrong. It is a different operation; dot product reduces to multiplication among scalars -- but so does cross product. It's okay to denote scalar product with either.

Granted, this might be dependent on the exact curriculum one studies through - but mine did NOT have a simplified one that was replaced - instead, it started with the most explicit one, and got simplified (with new, compatible notation that did not replace older one, only extended it) through the years. And it seems this was almost the case for you too.

Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry

#75

Post by seg_lol »

beagle3 wrote: post #67
seg_lol wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but being beginner-friendly is about the last thing one should care about. Why is that? If our ideas are good, don't we want the most number of people to know them? What if PL research isn't getting the population of people and ideas it desires? Look to organizations that have been around longer with even more inscrutable forms of knowledge, how well do they age and evolve? I think there is a lot more at play here…

> Wouldn't that be amazing. We know that there's a lower limit to distillation that cannot be breached, "Kolmogorov Complexity", which extends Shannon entropy significantly. Furthermore, though this limit is universal, it does (in a well defined way) depend on your prior knowledge. It may seem paradoxical but isn't - it's just too long for this space.... It is not proof in the mathematical sense, mostly because your…

You got me to chuckle at, "thought terminating thought experiment". I will file that in my cliché attaché.

Are you saying that I am asking for a universal perfect compressor, like I am winning the Hutter Prize [1] ? I don't believe I said that.

To add to the tooling, what if the forum itself "learned you", and took that into account when I respond. It would know everything you wrote, potentially everything you read (on this site), and you in turn would know me. It might help mediate a discussion or prevent folks from talking past each other. What if our systems, could allow us to contextualize communication so that it was grounded in the same basis of knowledge as the receiver?

Might some of those signaling mechanisms be the norms and affectations of each branch of study?

You have given me some things to think about [2]

[1] http://prize.hutter1.net/

[2] http://users.ics.aalto.fi/pkaski/kca/

[3] Looks like they have some thought provoking books and interviews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Chaitin

Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RLdSvQ-OF0

[4] A physicist looks at linguistics through a complexity lens http://www.its.caltech.edu/~matilde/LinguisticsToronto7.pdf http://www.its.caltech.edu/~matilde/MOL2019MathLinguisticsSl...

Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry

#76

Post by Izkata »

beagle3 wrote: post #74
Izkata wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another math example: 1) First learning multiplication with an "x", as in "4 x 3 = 12". 2) Then in algebra switching to " * " (dot) to avoid ambiguity with x-as-a-variable. 3) Later learning that " * " wasn't multiplication but actually dot product - it just happened to do the same thing with two scalars.

Weird. 1) When I grew up, multiplication and the letter X were styled very differently in books so that that was never ever a confusion. 2) The switch to dot, was NOT to avoid ambiguity, but to shorten stuff (IIRC we did that when we learned order of operations and started solving simple equations - writing "4 (dot) a" instaed of "4 (cross) a" -- and then just "4a" but multiplications still appear often among parenth…

On 1, we used typed-up worksheets that didn't have different styling. And even then, on occasion we had to write the "x" as part of an answer, or the teacher on the blackboard while teaching, which was more what I was thinking of anyway.

On 3, I think you misunderstood my point - in 2, we learned dot (the symbol) is multiplication, never touching on dot product because that was a good year or two later, then at that point were corrected to it not being what we first learned.

Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry

#77

Post by 8fGTBjZxBcHq »

beagle3 wrote: post #63
marcosdumay wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Python filled that niche. It's not perfect by any means, but it's better than what people used before (Basic, Pascal). Anyway, if you want an actually good option, Logo is still around. But it does not let you create anything really interesting, so you better get through it fast or your courses will become boring.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I agree Python is way better than Pascal or Java which it replaced as an introductory language. But I'm not sure it's better than old basic. Python is definitely more readable - but it is less helpful than e.g. line numbers in helping form a mental model of a running program; and from my experience, "goto" and then "gosub + return" are easier to explain than funcs with…

I have taught newcomers quite a bit and until you've done it you probably shouldn't trust your intuition about what non-programmers will and won't get hung up on.

Also like you mentioned, in even the medium-short term the thing that will get people learning the fastest is the thing that gives them a reason to code. Pretty much always right now that's going to be JS or sure maybe python.

Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry

#78

Post by Waterluvian »

Izkata wrote: post #76
beagle3 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird. 1) When I grew up, multiplication and the letter X were styled very differently in books so that that was never ever a confusion. 2) The switch to dot, was NOT to avoid ambiguity, but to shorten stuff (IIRC we did that when we learned order of operations and started solving simple equations - writing "4 (dot) a" instaed of "4 (cross) a" -- and then just "4a" but multiplications still appear often among parenth…

On 1, we used typed-up worksheets that didn't have different styling. And even then, on occasion we had to write the "x" as part of an answer, or the teacher on the blackboard while teaching, which was more what I was thinking of anyway. On 3, I think you misunderstood my point - in 2, we learned dot (the symbol) is multiplication, never touching on dot product because that was a good year or two later, then at that…

TIL dot is dot product. I just thought it’s another syntax for multiplication. That’s a pretty good example.

Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry

#79

Post by beagle3 »

seg_lol wrote: post #75
beagle3 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't that be amazing. We know that there's a lower limit to distillation that cannot be breached, "Kolmogorov Complexity", which extends Shannon entropy significantly. Furthermore, though this limit is universal, it does (in a well defined way) depend on your prior knowledge. It may seem paradoxical but isn't - it's just too long for this space.... It is not proof in the mathematical sense, mostly because your…

You got me to chuckle at, "thought terminating thought experiment". I will file that in my cliché attaché. Are you saying that I am asking for a universal perfect compressor, like I am winning the Hutter Prize [1] ? I don't believe I said that. To add to the tooling, what if the forum itself "learned you", and took that into account when I respond. It would know everything you wrote, potentially everything you read (…

I'm not sure how I contributed to your cliche attache, but I'm happy to help :) (The quotes imply it's reference to my words - but I wonder which ones?)

> Are you saying that I am asking for a universal perfect compressor,

In many ways, I think you are, of the Kolmogorov/Chaitin kind, if you are talking about language (which I thought you were). If you are talking about tooling, that would expand the same text at different level to different readers, then -- I didn't understand that, and that wasn't my response; I'll have to ponder that for a while before I respond.

I do think that algorithmic complexity is the right context to consider notation, if that wasn't clear -- not in that we can (or should) distill knowledge to the smallest representation, but in the implications of what different "interpretation machines" (that is, persons reading ...) need in order to understand a notation.

Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry

#80

Post by beagle3 »

8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #77
beagle3 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I agree Python is way better than Pascal or Java which it replaced as an introductory language. But I'm not sure it's better than old basic. Python is definitely more readable - but it is less helpful than e.g. line numbers in helping form a mental model of a running program; and from my experience, "goto" and then "gosub + return" are easier to explain than funcs with…

I have taught newcomers quite a bit and until you've done it you probably shouldn't trust your intuition about what non-programmers will and won't get hung up on. Also like you mentioned, in even the medium-short term the thing that will get people learning the fastest is the thing that gives them a reason to code. Pretty much always right now that's going to be JS or sure maybe python.

I have taught GW-BASIC, and also Python, C, Fortran and a couple of other languages through the years. But I don't trust my experience because it spans three decades, in which my experience changed, my student's backgrounds changed, etc.

Looking backwards, it is my experience that line-numbers and goto/gosub clicked more quickly and more deeply than function calls.

But, as you say, and as I alluded to in my first post, motivation to write code tomorrow morning is likely a better thing to optimize for.

I would refuse to teach JS, though; it has way too many warts one can't avoid, creating damage that would take a while to undo.

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