The untapped potential of human programming (2022) • Hacker News Board

Re: The untapped potential of human programming (2022)

#21

Post by layer8 » Sun, Mar 19, 2023, 7:30 PM UTC

nickpeterson wrote: post #14

nathan_compton wrote: post #4

I have to say I'm viscerally turned off by the language here. Perhaps even the idea, although there is obviously nothing objectionable about helping people reach their own goals, per se. The problem here is that this whole angle on human life seems to have forgotten that efficiency, productivity, etc are all there to help us find more time to live in a world where those things don't matter. To have leisure. To think…

I’ve had this argument a lot with people. The goal of technology should be to adapt to humans and free up time. I feel like instead we keep asking people to further adapt to the needs of the system/machine. Keyboards are a great example. We should just write as people have done for thousands of years. Machines would then read what we write and understand it and then use that digitized info. The problem is that it’s q…

Physical keyboards are at a near optimum for symbolic input, for the same reason that many musical instruments are operated by keys, and the standard interface for entering notes is a (musical) keyboard. Due to how our fingers work and having ten of them, this is the most efficient and precise way for humans to enter symbolic information.

Re: The untapped potential of human programming (2022)

#22

Post by nine_k » Sun, Mar 19, 2023, 7:35 PM UTC

nickpeterson wrote: post #20

nine_k wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keyboards are a great example. We should just write as people have done for thousands of years Nope, nope, nope. Keyboards are a great thing that save a lot of effort and muscle strain. I did my fair share of handwriting, and I experienced the strain and tiredness firsthand (ha). This is to say nothing of the speed. Ergonomic keyboards make things even easier. So no, we don't always want faster horses, and the heri…

I don’t know, I’m pretty dubious that the problems of the future are grossly aided by faster input. I feel like I think better when I write than when I type, I find that really hard to ignore.

Writing by hand is just slower, so it gives more time to think.

Jotting and doodling, on the other hand, is important to improve thinking, from my experience. It's just mostly not about text.

Re: The untapped potential of human programming (2022)

#23

Post by rr808 » Sun, Mar 19, 2023, 7:54 PM UTC

nathan_compton wrote: post #4

I have to say I'm viscerally turned off by the language here. Perhaps even the idea, although there is obviously nothing objectionable about helping people reach their own goals, per se. The problem here is that this whole angle on human life seems to have forgotten that efficiency, productivity, etc are all there to help us find more time to live in a world where those things don't matter. To have leisure. To think…

> The problem here is that this whole angle on human life seems to have forgotten that efficiency, productivity, etc are all there to help us find more time to live in a world where those things don't matter. To have leisure.

This is patently untrue. People in rich countries work the same or more than people in poor countries. Most people working full time could live perfectly well on a tenth their wage. Its a human condition that people want more.

Re: The untapped potential of human programming (2022)

#24

Post by golergka » Sun, Mar 19, 2023, 8:04 PM UTC

rr808 wrote: post #23

nathan_compton wrote: post #4

I have to say I'm viscerally turned off by the language here. Perhaps even the idea, although there is obviously nothing objectionable about helping people reach their own goals, per se. The problem here is that this whole angle on human life seems to have forgotten that efficiency, productivity, etc are all there to help us find more time to live in a world where those things don't matter. To have leisure. To think…

> The problem here is that this whole angle on human life seems to have forgotten that efficiency, productivity, etc are all there to help us find more time to live in a world where those things don't matter. To have leisure. This is patently untrue. People in rich countries work the same or more than people in poor countries. Most people working full time could live perfectly well on a tenth their wage. Its a human…

People in rich countries work at much more fulfilling and enjoyable jobs. Most of my white collar friends, both in it and outside are passionate about what they do.

Re: The untapped potential of human programming (2022)

#25

Post by r-bar » Sun, Mar 19, 2023, 8:09 PM UTC

I think human programming is not untapped at all. This is describing every line of business application in existence. A great example of both the power and limitations of this is phone trees for customer support.

A product team and dev team encode business knowledge and flows into code and leverage a human to make judgement calls when necessary. The outcome is a program that can either be used by skilled workers to multiply their output or allow unskilled workers to perform tasks that would have formerly required a skilled worker to accomplish.

There are already (arguably) optimized flows and design patterns for application UX. Companies have already spent years trying to build and optimize this "human programming". Dev teams have developed many DSLs to make it easier to encode business logic into their applications more quickly.

I am not saying line of business applications are good or near some optimal final form, but to call "human programming" untapped is taking a very narrow view of the definition.

Re: The untapped potential of human programming (2022)

#26

Post by orgelve » Sun, Mar 19, 2023, 8:14 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: The untapped potential of human programming (2022)

#27

Post by amelius » Sun, Mar 19, 2023, 8:48 PM UTC

nathan_compton wrote: post #4

I have to say I'm viscerally turned off by the language here. Perhaps even the idea, although there is obviously nothing objectionable about helping people reach their own goals, per se. The problem here is that this whole angle on human life seems to have forgotten that efficiency, productivity, etc are all there to help us find more time to live in a world where those things don't matter. To have leisure. To think…

Advertising is a type of human programming, and I want to stay away from it.

Re: The untapped potential of human programming (2022)

#28

Post by hanoz » Sun, Mar 19, 2023, 8:49 PM UTC

rr808 wrote: post #23

nathan_compton wrote: post #4

I have to say I'm viscerally turned off by the language here. Perhaps even the idea, although there is obviously nothing objectionable about helping people reach their own goals, per se. The problem here is that this whole angle on human life seems to have forgotten that efficiency, productivity, etc are all there to help us find more time to live in a world where those things don't matter. To have leisure. To think…

> The problem here is that this whole angle on human life seems to have forgotten that efficiency, productivity, etc are all there to help us find more time to live in a world where those things don't matter. To have leisure. This is patently untrue. People in rich countries work the same or more than people in poor countries. Most people working full time could live perfectly well on a tenth their wage. Its a human…

> Most people working full time could live perfectly well on a tenth their wage.

Now that is patently untrue. For most people 10% wouldn't come close to paying the rent alone.

Re: The untapped potential of human programming (2022)

#29

Post by treetoppin » Sun, Mar 19, 2023, 9:07 PM UTC

While I appreciate the subject matter, I think ignoring the prior art of checklist design and human factors engineering is a big oversight. I don’t know enough about either field to know what tools they are using in the process of designing instruction manuals, time critical check lists, or diagnostic and troubleshooting guides, but I imagine that would be a very good place to start. I will say though that bringing analog checklists into a multimedia world is an intriguing direction, since being able to access an expanded checklist that enables you to see details, infographics, etc when you want to dive into a specific step while also allowing you to track your current place in a process would be pretty cool.

Re: The untapped potential of human programming (2022)

#30

Post by rr808 » Sun, Mar 19, 2023, 9:25 PM UTC

hanoz wrote: post #28

rr808 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem here is that this whole angle on human life seems to have forgotten that efficiency, productivity, etc are all there to help us find more time to live in a world where those things don't matter. To have leisure. This is patently untrue. People in rich countries work the same or more than people in poor countries. Most people working full time could live perfectly well on a tenth their wage. Its a human…

> Most people working full time could live perfectly well on a tenth their wage. Now that is patently untrue. For most people 10% wouldn't come close to paying the rent alone.

I didn't say they would be able to live in the same space, they'd have to share with family, and/or cram into one room and/or live in a poorly built house, like people in poorer countries do, and we did 150 years ago.