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What Is Code?

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Re: What Is Code?

#231

Post by monknomo »

badkitten wrote: post #216
maratd wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was a thread a while back where software developers told me I was unreasonable to expect them to know who the vice president of the country they lived in was. It is absolutely unreasonable. The average person has no clue who the vice president happens to be ... so why should software developers? We can complain about how clueless average people are, sure, but there's no reason to apply a higher standard to so…

Of course there is. Software developers (in general) are smarter and have had better educations than "average" people. Most smart, educated people I know can name the vice president of the United States, and I don't even live in the US. I think it's completely unreasonable for someone not to know who the vice president of the country they live in is.

The corner office in the earlier example depends on the software being written to make money. If the software is bad, they will make less money.

By and large, knowing the vice president's name will not cause any appreciable dip or rise in how much money a company makes.

So, in the context of 'why is it important for business people who's livelihoods partially depend on code to know what code is?' not knowing what programmers do is worse than not knowing the vice president's name

Re: What Is Code?

#232

Post by [deleted] »

badkitten wrote: post #216
maratd wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was a thread a while back where software developers told me I was unreasonable to expect them to know who the vice president of the country they lived in was. It is absolutely unreasonable. The average person has no clue who the vice president happens to be ... so why should software developers? We can complain about how clueless average people are, sure, but there's no reason to apply a higher standard to so…

Of course there is. Software developers (in general) are smarter and have had better educations than "average" people. Most smart, educated people I know can name the vice president of the United States, and I don't even live in the US. I think it's completely unreasonable for someone not to know who the vice president of the country they live in is.

[deleted]

Re: What Is Code?

#233

Post by shard »

badkitten wrote: post #216
maratd wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was a thread a while back where software developers told me I was unreasonable to expect them to know who the vice president of the country they lived in was. It is absolutely unreasonable. The average person has no clue who the vice president happens to be ... so why should software developers? We can complain about how clueless average people are, sure, but there's no reason to apply a higher standard to so…

Of course there is. Software developers (in general) are smarter and have had better educations than "average" people. Most smart, educated people I know can name the vice president of the United States, and I don't even live in the US. I think it's completely unreasonable for someone not to know who the vice president of the country they live in is.

Regarding you and your acquaintances' knowledge of who the vice president of the US is, I think that's probably contextual knowledge. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if many of them doesn't know who the premier of China is, the second in power of a country arguably on the same power and influence scale as the US.

Re: What Is Code?

#234

Post by [deleted] »

Alupis wrote: post #205
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another anecdote. In 2015 my teenager will start High School in a small, rural , school district and each student has a Chromebook. No, I don't know what they will be used for besides googling information, but times are changing. I emphasized small and rural for a reason.

I know teachers at the local school district in my city. Chromebooks are used extensively in classes (elementary school, even down to 2nd grade) for researching (googling), typing practice, typing book reports, online testing, some educational games, reading, etc. They even have some educational websites they use to learn super basics of programming. It's really amazing stuff. I wish these sort of programs existed in…

[deleted]

Re: What Is Code?

#235

Post by mathattack »

ryandrake wrote: post #108

It's 2015. The audience of this article shouldn't even exist. The reader, as described in the article, is a VP who has so little understanding about what it is his company does, that the only meaningful abstraction he can mentally picture is that of his employees "burning barrels of money". Imagine an auto company VP who says "I don't know anything about engines and drivetrains and all that technical stuff. All I kno…

I've seen a lot of 50something execs who have been passed by on the technical superhighway.

I met a CIO of a large insurance company who didn't know what Python was.

I know a senior banker and educator who struggles with the basics of Excel and Word. (Yes, there are still people out there who are used to the days when secretaries did all the work.)

I knew an IT exec at a large consumer products company who didn't like using computers at all.

Re: What Is Code?

#236

Post by lmm »

eropple wrote: post #173
michaelvkpdx wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're living in a pretty isolated world, my friend. I'd say 90% of my friends would be the audience for this. I've been coding 20 years, most of my friends are successful, grad-degree educated people in a variety of fields, and some of them are even my coworkers. Who is supposed to teach people what code is? Our schools? Who with a CS degree and programming experience would willfully choose to teach in the USA's edu…

> Many coders would do well to read a similar article, if there was one, called, "What is Society?" There was a thread a while back where software developers told me I was unreasonable to expect them to know who the vice president of the country they lived in was. I feel you here a whole bunch.

What's the Vice President relevant to? It seems to me that for most of us it would be more relevant to know the name of e.g. the head of the FTC - and I don't think that's something you'd expect of people. Even if you did want to know about the Vice President, knowing his party or policies is surely more important than his name. A name is just a trivial fact, not important to actual understanding - and you could look it up if you ever needed it. I'm reminded of http://unreasonable.org/Feynman_and_the_map_of_the_cat .

Re: What Is Code?

#237

Post by NeutronBoy »

ryandrake wrote: post #108

It's 2015. The audience of this article shouldn't even exist. The reader, as described in the article, is a VP who has so little understanding about what it is his company does, that the only meaningful abstraction he can mentally picture is that of his employees "burning barrels of money". Imagine an auto company VP who says "I don't know anything about engines and drivetrains and all that technical stuff. All I kno…

> Imagine an auto company VP who says "I don't know anything about engines and drivetrains and all that technical stuff. All I know is that when you guys are in a meeting talking about your variable valve timing system, all I smell is money burning!"

His job isn't to know about drivetrains and engines and stuff. His job is to manage products, cashflow, audit requirements, stock market regulations, and marketing. That's the stuff he has to deal with day to day.

Re: What Is Code?

#238

Post by fl0wenol »

mc808 wrote: post #158
ForHackernews wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I agree with you about Photoshop. Perhaps (probably) there are photoshop macros or pipelines that are closer to programming, but most people use Photoshop purely in an interactive mode. They enter commands directly, and the logic stays in the users' heads, not in the computer. Photoshop is more like a REPL tied to an image-processing library than it is a programming language.

A Photoshop "program" would consist of the composition of image layers, adjustment layers, blend modes, styles, masks, text blocks, shapes, paths, and so on. You "run the program" when exporting to a bitmap format. It probably doesn't help to think about it that way when using Photoshop, but it might be a useful mental model for developing Photoshop, or as an example of how a general visual programming language UI mi…

Sometimes the boxes-and-lines metaphor for creative design is what you want... professional video products work like this:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/ca/products/fusion

It's like After Effects meets Simulink.

Re: What Is Code?

#239

Post by jeffreyrogers »

cordite wrote: post #22
merrickread wrote: post #9

My Dad always tells me he flat out does not understand what I do. He respects it, knows it's challenging and fun, but just doesn't get it. I've sent this to him -- he's about 1/4 of the way through and thoroughly enjoying it. This is a very fun read that's worth leafing through

My father sent a small comment chain to me as well on a topic like this on one of his blog posts. June 3, 2015 at 10:12 am I think software developers like to impress people with how many lines of code they can write. June 3, 2015 at 3:31 pm That is not true. A good day is when you leave the office with more powerful software, but fewer lines of code. June 4, 2015 at 4:31 am So why is software always getting bigger ?…

> Does this even apply to free software like browsers and email clients ?

The more I get involved in open source the more I think most code bloat is due to people needing their egos validated by getting a commit into a project, regardless of whether the commit is all that useful or not.

Re: What Is Code?

#240

Post by skybrian »

ryandrake wrote: post #108

It's 2015. The audience of this article shouldn't even exist. The reader, as described in the article, is a VP who has so little understanding about what it is his company does, that the only meaningful abstraction he can mentally picture is that of his employees "burning barrels of money". Imagine an auto company VP who says "I don't know anything about engines and drivetrains and all that technical stuff. All I kno…

It's a caricature, much like the pointy haired boss in Dilbert. The reader is supposed to think "at least I'm not as dumb as that guy".

Also, the whole article is written as if it were 1997. The graphic design is rather HotWired-like, in a world where they had the tools we have now.

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