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Don't Learn to Code, Learn to Program – But Come Back in 10 Years

johnkurkowski.com

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Re: Don't Learn to Code, Learn to Program – But Come Back in 10 Years

#41

Post by nbouscal »

zenbowman wrote: post #13

I don't the author understands programming if he sees object-oriented programming as being in the same bucket as HTML/CSS/JS. OOP is a way to deconstruct problems, just like functional programming, and their beginnings are based on very similar principles. Any language that fully accepts the object-oriented paradigm lends itself very naturally to functional programming, and vice-versa.

Uh. What? Fully accepting the object-oriented paradigm does not make a language any more likely to properly isolate state and side effects[1], any more likely to have immutability as a default assumption, or any more likely in any other way to encourage referential transparency. As referential transparency is the essence of functional programming, this makes your claim very confusing.

[1] Following OOP design patterns makes a given program more likely to properly isolate state, but this is by no means a virtue of OOP languages.

Re: Don't Learn to Code, Learn to Program – But Come Back in 10 Years

#42

Post by slacka »

reyan wrote: post #21

I think the author should read Fred Brooks's "No Silver Bullet". Many of his arguments are still valid after 28 years. "There is no single development, in either technology or in management technique, that by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity."

"No Silver Bullet" reminds me of the physicists at turn of century claiming that Newtonian physics held all of the answers. He blames the issues in software engineering on bad programmers, instead of questioning his field. His narrow minded, defeatist arguments fail to recognize the full potential of computer science. I don't buy his argument that Java or JavaScript have eliminated most of the accidental complexity in programming. It's like Von Neumann claiming, “I don’t see why anybody would need anything other than machine code.

Computer Science is still in its infancy. We haven't reached the full potential of Von Neumann architecture, let alone the dozens of non-Von Neumann systems that have been largely ignored by academia. Recent advances in neuroscience may open up a whole new model for information processing, such as IBM's SyNAPSE project.[1] Have you watched Bret Victor's, "The Future of Programming"?[2] He does a wonderful job of countering many of Fred Brooks's points.

[1] https://www.research.ibm.com/cognitive-computing/neurosynapt...

[2] http://worrydream.com/dbx/

Re: Don't Learn to Code, Learn to Program – But Come Back in 10 Years

#43

Post by overgard »

Just because something is hard doesn't mean it's broken. Nobody would say that say, advanced mathematics is broken because the layman doesn't get it.

My bullshit detector notes that he talks very generally about "knowledge workers leveraging machines". The problem with the phrase "knowledge worker" is it often means "person who sends lots of emails". You don't need to be a programmer to send lots of emails.

Real "knowledge workers", like, the kind of people that actually are working to extend human knowledge and need computers to do it, largely do know how to program to some degree (IE, scientists and mathematicians and so on). A lot of it isn't "professional" grade, but it works well enough for them and it keeps getting better.

Also a tangent: but I'm sick of the whole "coding is literacy" nonsense. Not everyone needs to code. Literacy unlocks centuries worth of knowledge in any domain you want, from contemporary thinkers to people who are long dead. Coding lets you tell a computer how to do specialized things. It's not even remotely comparable.

Re: Don't Learn to Code, Learn to Program – But Come Back in 10 Years

#44

Post by ef4 »

The author is frustrated by a real and frustrating problem, but he's missing why things are this way.

The "triumvirate of HTML/CSS/Javascript" isn't just a technology. It's a social consensus. It's not actually "designed" in a meaningful sense -- it's evolved.

And things pretty much need to be this way, unless you want to be an island. Even if you have the ambition and the resources to throw it all away and "do it right" from scratch, by the time you finish the world will have moved on and your perfect gem will be obsolete. Real technology is always iterative.

The same constraints apply to programming languages in general, because they truly are languages that human beings use for thinking. Languages and their associated cultures can only evolve so fast. It's not really a technical issue, it's a social issue.

The author's assertion that our "arcane" interfaces persist out of a kind of perverse pride just doesn't ring true to my experience. Programmers cry tears of joy when they get to throw away something old and arcane because they don't need it anymore. And his assumption that visual programming will necessarily be better than textual programming is completely unproven.

Anyone who could actually make programming easy would reap vast wealth. The incentive is there. If it's really a no-brainer to build visual programming tools, well, where are they? There must be something harder about it than you think if we're still waiting.

Re: Don't Learn to Code, Learn to Program – But Come Back in 10 Years

#45

Post by reyan »

slacka wrote: post #42
reyan wrote: post #21

I think the author should read Fred Brooks's "No Silver Bullet". Many of his arguments are still valid after 28 years. "There is no single development, in either technology or in management technique, that by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity."

"No Silver Bullet" reminds me of the physicists at turn of century claiming that Newtonian physics held all of the answers. He blames the issues in software engineering on bad programmers, instead of questioning his field. His narrow minded, defeatist arguments fail to recognize the full potential of computer science. I don't buy his argument that Java or JavaScript have eliminated most of the accidental complexity i…

Yes I have watched Bret Victor's talk. Narrow minded or not, Brooks's predictions held true for more than a decade after the time of writing. I'd like to read your counter-arguments.

I'd say architecture and advances in neuroscience are tangential here. I think the core of the problem is still somewhere else.

* sidenote: Lisp machines weren't at least completely _ignored_ by academia.

Re: Don't Learn to Code, Learn to Program – But Come Back in 10 Years

#46

Post by midas007 »

overgard wrote: post #43

Just because something is hard doesn't mean it's broken. Nobody would say that say, advanced mathematics is broken because the layman doesn't get it. My bullshit detector notes that he talks very generally about "knowledge workers leveraging machines". The problem with the phrase "knowledge worker" is it often means "person who sends lots of emails". You don't need to be a programmer to send lots of emails. Real "kno…

Exactly. Life is hard. Business is hard. Coding doesn't eliminate work, it just enables new kinds of work. And, it's like coding an app that makes money isn't completely effortless but it is obviously possible.

Coding != literacy. In fact, not everyone needs to go to college either and can still make a living. Mike Rowe's trades-awareness work is fantastic: http://profoundlydisconnected.com/ There are many trades where the average age is 50 because no one wants to be seen as blue collar. Some of these are high income opportunities that are being missed because they're not mainstream fashionable.

Re: Don't Learn to Code, Learn to Program – But Come Back in 10 Years

#47

Post by chris_mahan »

I left this comment at the blog:

Perhaps coding will look like minecraft, where you dig physical paths for the water, for the chickens, and hunt down bugs with bows and arrows. Modern tablets with no keyboards do minecraft just fine (my 8 year old and all his friends are completely addicted to minecraft). Also, they can join lan games, and work in the same virtual world. This may allow multiuser programming, no? Weird thoughts. They won't call it programming either, they'll call it something like flowcraft or some such.

Re: Don't Learn to Code, Learn to Program – But Come Back in 10 Years

#48

Post by jaybill »

The author of the article wrote it using words. He didn't make a video or draw a picture, because words were the best way for him to communicate with other humans. For some reason, he wants a different way to communicate with machines, one that is inherently not the way humans communicate with each other.

I also agree with what others have said, that this is nothing but a bitch fest with nothing actionable other than we ought to be creating visual programming tools no one wants or needs instead of doing actual work. Sure, buddy. I'll get right on that.

Re: Don't Learn to Code, Learn to Program – But Come Back in 10 Years

#49

Post by nevir »

jimbokun wrote: post #18

My paraphrase of this article: "All of the blood sweat and tears poured into making programming more productive over the years just isn't good enough. No, I haven't done anything, personally, to improve the situation. My plan is to continue bitching about how things aren't good enough until...well, indefinitely, because bitching about other people's efforts is much easier than doing the hard work of solving a challen…

I read it as: "programming could be so much better; I have a glimpse of what it could be like, but don't know how to get there."

Re: Don't Learn to Code, Learn to Program – But Come Back in 10 Years

#50

Post by joesmo »

VLM wrote: post #22
joesmo wrote: post #12

I don't think we have to worry about "everyone" or even a small percentage thereof learning how to code. They won't. It's not that they can't, but it takes more than a couple of hours writing "Hello World" to do anything substantial and most people are not willing to put in the time, day after day, to learn anything substantial. That being said, I can't imagine anything more human and more powerful than text. If I wa…

"It's not that they can't" No, they really can't. Garbage in garbage out. Can't implement an algorithm or follow a protocol unless you understand it, and the world is full of people who literally don't understand how a thermostat works, how to drive safely, or how to implement the NRAs three basic rules of gun safety. Note that our shared enjoyment of text as per your 3rd paragraph is only politically correct WRT to…

I should have been more clear in my writing as I did not mean to suggest most people could program, but that even smart people with the potential to learn it (a very small percentage) generally are not interested in investing the time.

I agree, text (reading and writing) is definitely a dying art, especially in America, although to me it seems to be part of the whole anti-intellectual culture brewing here and in other parts of the world.

Perl?

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