This is so true - all too often the problems encountered in a project were caused because someone didn't really understand what was going on under the surface.
The dumbing-down of programming (1998)
11–20 of 34 posts
Re: The dumbing-down of programming (1998)
#12At first it looked like link bait, but was well worth the read. Very articulate and for some reason I found it quite comforting.
Agreed. I especially liked the use of "All the lovely graphical skins turned to so much bitwise detritus" I can visualize the 1's and 0's settling on the bottom. Despite his discontent for "the wizards", he seems to realize their usefulness in his last sentence with "the tool as convenient information repository." Certainly, especially in their earlier incantations, the wizards can try to do too much, but a decade la…
Her. Her discontent.
Re: The dumbing-down of programming (1998)
#13"Run as the root user from the root directory, type in rm -r f * , and, at the stroke of the ENTER key, gone are all the files and directories. Recursively, each directory deleting itself once its files have been deleted, right down to the very directory from which you entered the command: the snake swallowing its tail." Actually that would be rm -rf * and it wouldn't delete /, the directory from which you entered th…
Actually, I don't think you can delete / at all on unix. It's its own parent.
Re: The dumbing-down of programming (1998)
#14Wizards and GUIs (for the most part) only allow the user to perform operations that the developers have anticipated.
The beauty of interacting with the computer through the command line -- the shell or some other programmable interface -- is that you can do things that no one else has thought of before. You can write any program that is expressible in the language you use or string together the input and output of any program on your machine.
Buttons are nice, but sometimes you just need to be more expressive than that. When this mode of interaction is necessary, I find that the Unix way has a lot to offer.
Re: The dumbing-down of programming (1998)
#15"But what if you're an experienced engineer? What if you've already learned the technology contained in the tool, and you're ready to stop worrying about it? Maybe letting the wizard do the work isn't a loss of knowledge but simply a form of storage: the tool as convenient information repository."
Right, and this is what a lot of code generation tools do. After understanding the problem, you write a tool which can write code to solve that problem in a more general sense.
Almost all the software we write can be thought of that way; they are information repositories for problems we already solved.
However, with a lot of things that require deep understanding, there are walls. These represent the places where a person can no longer fake understanding, and either have to stop immediately and develop some or give up. Before the days of wizards, users would encounter plenty of warning signs that their understanding was not enough well before hitting the wall. Example: your 100 line C program is segmentation faulting; time to better understand about pointers and memory allocation before you write a 20k line program depending on the same.
The problem is that wizards are very undiscriminating on who experiences the easing. The output is mostly the same for the experienced engineer as for the non-engineer. The brick wall for the non-engineer still remains, however warnings of danger ahead are hidden being a easy-to-use interface. There is no encouragement for them to go understand better before progressing, and instead they rush straight on into the wall. The still need all the understanding once they get there, but the encouragement to develop it comes later, and so the rate at which it needs to be learned comes faster.
The question this poses is really difficult: how do we abstract away the need to apply knowledge to the same problem repeatedly, yet avoid abstracting away the need to have that knowledge?
Otherwise, very worthwhile article. She captures the spirit of curiosity that drives the need for deep understanding in me, and probably most people here.
Re: The dumbing-down of programming (1998)
#16She beautifully explained what draws people like myself to GNU/Linux. I have tried to convey some of these ideas to colleagues who are serious about Windows programming, to no avail. It's not about Microsoft either. In my industry (flight simulation) there are some machines and systems where you can go deep and acquire design-level knowledge, and other systems where you're dealing with black boxes. Some people prefer…
Some people prefer the latter; when things go wrong, you cycle the power switch and then contact the manufacturer if the problem still exists. I think some people take comfort in the notion that they are not ultimately responsible for whether the machines work or not. Sorry if that sounds terribly arrogant.
A specific instance of a much more general principle. Responsibility and understanding are hard, and passing around the problem as a black-box for someone else to solve is far simpler.
The arrogance isn't yours; it is with the people who feel entitled to someone who will take their black-boxes and return a solution, and otherwise assure they are never responsible for understanding anything. The ability to have someone do this is valuable, but it is nothing that is deserved.
Re: The dumbing-down of programming (1998)
#17She beautifully explained what draws people like myself to GNU/Linux. I have tried to convey some of these ideas to colleagues who are serious about Windows programming, to no avail. It's not about Microsoft either. In my industry (flight simulation) there are some machines and systems where you can go deep and acquire design-level knowledge, and other systems where you're dealing with black boxes. Some people prefer…
Really? I found the article moronic. Witness:
'Linux: home-brewed, hobbyist, group-hacked. UNIX-like operating system created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds then passed around from hand to hand like so much anti-Soviet samizdat. Noncommercial, sold on the cheap mainly for the cost of the documentation, impracticable except perhaps for the thrill of actually looking at the source code and utterly useless to my life as a software engineering consultant.'
Re: The dumbing-down of programming (1998)
#18She beautifully explained what draws people like myself to GNU/Linux. I have tried to convey some of these ideas to colleagues who are serious about Windows programming, to no avail. It's not about Microsoft either. In my industry (flight simulation) there are some machines and systems where you can go deep and acquire design-level knowledge, and other systems where you're dealing with black boxes. Some people prefer…
From time to time I have to explain to colleagues why I prefer a minimalistic approach to programming.
One analogy to cars :) ... for normal people, having automatic transmission is great ... you can drive the vehicle with only one hand, and it allows you to concentrate more on the actual driving. But race cars still have manual or semi-automatic transmissions. Thus race drivers are empowered to do neat tricks while driving ... like not changing gears while passing another car to not lose acceleration. A manual transmission is also great for off road driving. And great drivers are also good mechanics ... cars break during races, and without knowing your car, you probably won't finish.
Of course, not all of us are meant to be race drivers. But if you want to be the best you can be, taking the ease route is not the way to go.
Re: The dumbing-down of programming (1998)
#19She beautifully explained what draws people like myself to GNU/Linux. I have tried to convey some of these ideas to colleagues who are serious about Windows programming, to no avail. It's not about Microsoft either. In my industry (flight simulation) there are some machines and systems where you can go deep and acquire design-level knowledge, and other systems where you're dealing with black boxes. Some people prefer…
Really? I found the article moronic. Witness: 'Linux: home-brewed, hobbyist, group-hacked. UNIX-like operating system created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds then passed around from hand to hand like so much anti-Soviet samizdat. Noncommercial, sold on the cheap mainly for the cost of the documentation, impracticable except perhaps for the thrill of actually looking at the source code and utterly useless to my life as a so…
That's called "sarcasm" ;)
Re: The dumbing-down of programming (1998)
#20She beautifully explained what draws people like myself to GNU/Linux. I have tried to convey some of these ideas to colleagues who are serious about Windows programming, to no avail. It's not about Microsoft either. In my industry (flight simulation) there are some machines and systems where you can go deep and acquire design-level knowledge, and other systems where you're dealing with black boxes. Some people prefer…
Really? I found the article moronic. Witness: 'Linux: home-brewed, hobbyist, group-hacked. UNIX-like operating system created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds then passed around from hand to hand like so much anti-Soviet samizdat. Noncommercial, sold on the cheap mainly for the cost of the documentation, impracticable except perhaps for the thrill of actually looking at the source code and utterly useless to my life as a so…
This /was/ written 11 years ago. The market for Linux consultants is a little different today.