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What Is Code?

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Re: What Is Code?

#351

Post by jweather »

mangeletti wrote: post #286
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

Wow, I did the exact same thing, for exactly the same reason. My dad called me a few hours later and said, "I finished the 38000 word article you sent.". I checked and he wasn't far off; it's around 29000 words.

The certificate of participation at the end claims it's 38,000 words...

Re: What Is Code?

#352

Post by tempestn »

parasubvert wrote: post #339
tempestn wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? The average person doesn't know who the vice president of their own country is? I'm Canadian and I still know who the US vice president is. Surely most American adults do too.

Nope: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368482/How-ignorant... Lots of people hate politics and really avoid any study of it.

From your link: "...who is the Vice President of America? (29 per cent did not know)"

So the majority of Americans do indeed know who the vice president is. (Although yes, a large minority don't.)

Re: What Is Code?

#353

Post by DanBC »

parasubvert wrote: post #339
tempestn wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? The average person doesn't know who the vice president of their own country is? I'm Canadian and I still know who the US vice president is. Surely most American adults do too.

Nope: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368482/How-ignorant... Lots of people hate politics and really avoid any study of it.

> Stumped: In the U.S. citizenship test, only 38 per cent of Americans passed

> Although the majority passed, more than a third - 38 per cent - failed,

Daily Mail is fucking useless.

Re: What Is Code?

#354

Post by maratd »

tempestn wrote: post #352
parasubvert wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368482/How-ignorant... Lots of people hate politics and really avoid any study of it.

From your link: "...who is the Vice President of America? (29 per cent did not know)" So the majority of Americans do indeed know who the vice president is. (Although yes, a large minority don't.)

The data is from the US Citizenship test, so those taking it aren't "Americans" yet and have been specifically studying for the test.

I stand by my assertion that the majority of Americans have no clue who Biden is and I swear to you, I wish I didn't either. The whole political arena is absolutely revolting and I'm not surprised the majority of people are apathetic to it.

Re: What Is Code?

#355

Post by tempestn »

maratd wrote: post #354
tempestn wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your link: "...who is the Vice President of America? (29 per cent did not know)" So the majority of Americans do indeed know who the vice president is. (Although yes, a large minority don't.)

The data is from the US Citizenship test, so those taking it aren't "Americans" yet and have been specifically studying for the test. I stand by my assertion that the majority of Americans have no clue who Biden is and I swear to you, I wish I didn't either. The whole political arena is absolutely revolting and I'm not surprised the majority of people are apathetic to it.

Actually it says they gave the citizenship test to 1000 Americans to see how they would do. 29% didn't know who the VP was (so 71% did). 1000 isn't a massive sample, but I expect it's enough to say that the majority of American adults do know. Anyway, it isn't a very interesting discussion regardless.

Re: What Is Code?

#356

Post by parasubvert »

DanBC wrote: post #353
parasubvert wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368482/How-ignorant... Lots of people hate politics and really avoid any study of it.

> Stumped: In the U.S. citizenship test, only 38 per cent of Americans passed > Although the majority passed, more than a third - 38 per cent - failed, Daily Mail is fucking useless.

LOL, that's funny. I'll admit I saw a few articles on this survey and the Daily Mail's was first on my results list. Does cringing while posting it lend forgiveness? ;)

Re: What Is Code?

#357

Post by igravious »

igravious wrote: post #149
mathattack wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The precision required in programming makes it hard for the right brained person who won't meet the computer at least part of the way.

I don't believe that there is no such thing as a right brained person. I think this is a cultural myth. Same as, "you only use 10% of your brain's power". These, and similar, are false memes - iow hokum.

ah crap, no -> any (how embarrassing (and how the hell?))

Re: What Is Code?

#358

Post by ErikRogneby »

Willson50 wrote: post #335
tormeh wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't really understand that part. Care to explain?

Aggregate sites like Hacker News and Reddit make distribution of news and ideas very quick and viral compared to more organic growth such as word of mouth and google.

Not just distributed very quick but deemed worthy or unworthy very quick by the pseudo-meritocracy that is the "upvote".

Re: What Is Code?

#359

Post by Too »

arxpoetica wrote: post #49

> There have been countless attempts to make software easier to write...Decades of efforts have gone into helping civilians write code...Nothing yet has done away with developers, developers, developers, developers. I still believe. Someday, somewhere, something incredible will emerge for the right-brained bourgeoisie and literati.

Not likely.

I've seen non developers try to write specs in whichever format they like: word, excel, drawings, hand written, in speech, mockup tools, anything. They decide exactly how they want to express their idea without any constraints. And yet, they always fail.

There are always too many edge cases they do not think of. They only cover the "happy path" and quite often not even that. Just take the email conversation from the article as example, they didnt even touch the subject of implementation and it was already jibberish even for a developer. You need someone to actually sit down and squint their eyes over something, do research and run some test cases for a few hours before these emerge. Once you start doing this you are already by defition a software developer.

Re: What Is Code?

#360

Post by Too »

TruthSHIFT wrote: post #39

I love how the page calls you out for skimming it instead of reading it.

Huh, is this what caused the whole page to go pixelated and ask for permission to use my camera each time I changed orientation on my tablet? I had to reload the page each time this happened and scroll down to where I was before. Very annoying.
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