Why I Desperately Needed to Learn to Code • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Desperately Needed to Learn to Code

#21

Post by kiba » Wed, May 16, 2012, 5:42 AM UTC

celer wrote: post #20

kiba wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason why mathematics & sciences are taught by hand is to demonstrate the process and confront the complexity at hand. So what? Programmers deal with lot of complexity all the time. This is not necessarily true. Sure, after you are first shown the problem you then trudge through multiple calculations and variations of the problem, but the purpose of this isn't to grind it out and memorize it, but to rein…

Important point here: You are not representative. If you are on Hacker News, you have probably been called brilliant at least once. You are almost certainly, given that you don't seem to be a non technical co-founder in a startup, in the top 5% of the population for mathematical/logical(not necessarily arithmetic) abilities. Just because you find the calculations tedious does not mean that most people don't benefit f…

Important point here: You are not representative. If you are on Hacker News, you have probably been called brilliant at least once. You are almost certainly, given that you don't seem to be a non technical co-founder in a startup, in the top 5% of the population for mathematical/logical(not necessarily arithmetic) abilities.

That's because I learn to program. If people learn to program, they'll be more "mathematical/logical" too. I am "brilliant" through hard work and curiosity, not because I have high IQ.

Just because you find the calculations tedious does not mean that most people don't benefit from them.

I meant we humans suck at calculation. We are not like computers that can follow steps perfectly. Even when we know the steps, we often get the answer wrong due to our mistakes in following the steps.

From what I recall, most people forget a concept that they are exposed to once and only once.

What make you think it doesn't apply to me or to the rest of people on hacker news?

Re: Why I Desperately Needed to Learn to Code

#22

Post by sparknlaunch12 » Wed, May 16, 2012, 6:03 AM UTC

This is probably the best of the recent 'don't/do code' blog posts. You don't need to be a guru but over time you can learn enough to get by and understand code.

If you are building a serious business, eventually you will need to hand over the real development work, to real developers. This allows you time to do what you're good at.

Re: Why I Desperately Needed to Learn to Code

#23

Post by nhaehnle » Wed, May 16, 2012, 8:56 AM UTC

kiba wrote: post #7

nirvana wrote: post #2

Radical notion: Some people should learn to code. Some shouldn't. Not everyone should be a programmer. Some people need to program even though they are bad programmers (e.g.: a business guy stringing together off the shelf services with a little bit of glue code to make an MVP to attract an engineer cofounder.) If you have the internal drive to be a programmer- great, be one. If the idea repulses you, then do somethi…

I think we should incorporate programming into mathematic classes starting with the earliest grade possible. The way people are taught mathematics is mostly useless. It's a bunch of equation and calculation that people are doing by hand . Nobody is trying to identify problems, break them down, make hypothesis, and so on. With programming, we could take the usefulness of mathematics to a whole new level by breaking th…

The way people are taught mathematics is mostly useless. It's a bunch of equation and calculation that people are doing by hand. Nobody is trying to identify problems, break them down, make hypothesis, and so on.

I recall some episodes of five minutes wasted by research mathematicians because they were unable to quickly multiply some 2x2 matrices in their heads.

Being able to perform the low-level skills like arithmetic very rapidly in your head helps tremendously when it comes to narrowing down hypotheses. You can often reject a hypothesis quickly if you are fast enough at doing some computations in your head.

So yes, more teaching of how to identify problems and break them down is a good idea. But you also need to be rock-solid in those elementary but fundamental skills, and you don't get there without a lot of practice.

Re: Why I Desperately Needed to Learn to Code

#24

Post by sneak » Wed, May 16, 2012, 8:11 PM UTC

CognitiveLens wrote: post #18

garindra wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't notice it before I saw your comment; I then tried it, and as a result, gave the "kudo" by accident too. This is a great example of beauty/fanciness != good user experience. There's no way to "unkudo" either, sigh..

I did the same thing, got momentarily distressed, then realized it means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things and smiled at a playful little implementation of a voting widget. This is the show where everything is made up and the points don't matter.

For bonus points, go watch the hour (6x 10-minute vids) of Whose Line outtakes on youtube. Easily some of the best comedy I've ever seen in my life.