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The Unix Pipe Card Game

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Re: The Unix Pipe Card Game

#81

Post by jama211 »

godelski wrote: post #69
jama211 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grit is something you gain once you already have an intrinsic motivation, such as already having a belief you can do this. Something has to spark in people that they’re capable in the first place.

People forget that struggling is part of the learning process. It's great that people want to make things easier to learn, but struggling is essential. You want to ensure that people don't struggle so much they get stuck (one extreme), but you don't want to make it so easy people don't struggle at all (the other extreme). There's balance, but that balance requires struggling.

I think this is one of those statements that sounds reasonable on the surface but if you read it over a few times it doesn’t say anything concrete enough to pin down anything that could be refuted, even though I think the vibe is off.

So in return I’ll share my vibe, which is that my point was a small amount of struggle can be good once people are already determined to learn something, perhaps because they have found a spark for it. But before they’ve found their spark, all it does is turn people off. And in general, I don’t think struggle is essential at all. In fact I’ve learned a great many things successfully without struggling.

Re: The Unix Pipe Card Game

#82

Post by saulpw »

jama211 wrote: post #81
godelski wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People forget that struggling is part of the learning process. It's great that people want to make things easier to learn, but struggling is essential. You want to ensure that people don't struggle so much they get stuck (one extreme), but you don't want to make it so easy people don't struggle at all (the other extreme). There's balance, but that balance requires struggling.

I think this is one of those statements that sounds reasonable on the surface but if you read it over a few times it doesn’t say anything concrete enough to pin down anything that could be refuted, even though I think the vibe is off. So in return I’ll share my vibe, which is that my point was a small amount of struggle can be good once people are already determined to learn something, perhaps because they have found…

You must have a different brain than mine. I'm finding (and increasingly as I age), that the act of learning feels inherently uncomfortable. Like my brain really wants to use its existing toolset instead of learning something new, and is saying so quite loudly. A similar discomfort happens with exercise. If there's zero struggle to lift the weight, then your muscles aren't really developing. I think this is pretty well-known and well-documented.

So how do you learn without struggle? Are you being spoonfed the material on a learning happy path so you happen to never make a mistake and thereby have to redo your work? Do you not experience effort and mistakes and frustration as 'struggle'? After you're "done" learning a particular skill without struggle, what happens when you have to apply that skill at a higher level than you learned it at? Is it just joy and rainbows all the time?

Re: The Unix Pipe Card Game

#83

Post by benj111 »

bandrami wrote: post #67
robocat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> usually it meant just straight up getting the command wrong 5 times before trying to read the man page, thinking I understood what the man page meant, trying again another 5 times I think that is a developer's superpower. The poncy term for it is grit. I tell others that the secret to leaning computers is frustration and persistence. > and then giving up. Knowing when to stop or change direction is hard. I've defin…

I've been a sysadmin for a quarter century and I've always said my only real superpower is that I read error messages when they appear, something none of my non-admin coworkers can do, for some reason.

Do copy pasting them into Google count?

Re: The Unix Pipe Card Game

#84

Post by godelski »

saulpw wrote: post #82
jama211 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is one of those statements that sounds reasonable on the surface but if you read it over a few times it doesn’t say anything concrete enough to pin down anything that could be refuted, even though I think the vibe is off. So in return I’ll share my vibe, which is that my point was a small amount of struggle can be good once people are already determined to learn something, perhaps because they have found…

You must have a different brain than mine. I'm finding (and increasingly as I age), that the act of learning feels inherently uncomfortable. Like my brain really wants to use its existing toolset instead of learning something new, and is saying so quite loudly. A similar discomfort happens with exercise. If there's zero struggle to lift the weight, then your muscles aren't really developing. I think this is pretty we…

I don't think it's just age, and I think the comparison to working out is apt. To gain muscle you need to get tired. To restate my previous comment in this framework: to gain muscle you need to struggle; you can go too far and injure yourself but neither is there exercise that is effortless.

I'm not sure how the gp even reasons like they do. What does effortlessly learning a new skill look like? You're just instantly good at it? The logical conclusion here is that either: 1) they're so galaxy brain that nothing is hard or 2) they're incrementing so minutely that the progress is so smooth sailing that they are able to fool themselves into not believing there ever was a struggle.

If the first option we have to consider their morals as they could save countless lives and thrust humanity generations ahead technologically, due to their ability to solve problems us mere mortals struggle with.

Personally I'm much more believing of option 2 as it makes the most sense if we consider the computational requirements for increasing precision along with our current understanding of human psychology to create these types of mental defenses as remembering the struggle can deter us from doing it again. But mostly I'm sold on option 2 because if they were so galaxy brained they'd be cognizant of the fact that the rest of us aren't and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But hey, maybe I'm the one fooling myself here. Maybe the gp is just god. They could just be omnipotent and not omniscient. Which in that case we've answered the AGI super intelligent problem.

Re: The Unix Pipe Card Game

#85

Post by bandrami »

benj111 wrote: post #83
bandrami wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a sysadmin for a quarter century and I've always said my only real superpower is that I read error messages when they appear, something none of my non-admin coworkers can do, for some reason.

Do copy pasting them into Google count?

Sure, about 3/4 of the time the answer is on the first page of results

Re: The Unix Pipe Card Game

#86

Post by jama211 »

saulpw wrote: post #82
jama211 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is one of those statements that sounds reasonable on the surface but if you read it over a few times it doesn’t say anything concrete enough to pin down anything that could be refuted, even though I think the vibe is off. So in return I’ll share my vibe, which is that my point was a small amount of struggle can be good once people are already determined to learn something, perhaps because they have found…

You must have a different brain than mine. I'm finding (and increasingly as I age), that the act of learning feels inherently uncomfortable. Like my brain really wants to use its existing toolset instead of learning something new, and is saying so quite loudly. A similar discomfort happens with exercise. If there's zero struggle to lift the weight, then your muscles aren't really developing. I think this is pretty we…

When you read a novel, you’re learning the plot, the intricate relationships between the characters, forming opinions about the current and future state of the fictional world, that sort of thing. Does this feel like a struggle to you? It’s still learning, but I don’t find it a struggle, mostly because I’m enjoying the process and the experience.

A great many things can be learned in this way. Not everything I’ll grant you, I haven’t found a way to learn a language or complex mathematical topics without struggle yet. But even in my software development work if something is a joy to learn I still learn it, no struggle required.

Kids learn a lot through play, and play isn’t a struggle for kids.

Lots of examples.

Re: The Unix Pipe Card Game

#87

Post by jama211 »

godelski wrote: post #84
saulpw wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must have a different brain than mine. I'm finding (and increasingly as I age), that the act of learning feels inherently uncomfortable. Like my brain really wants to use its existing toolset instead of learning something new, and is saying so quite loudly. A similar discomfort happens with exercise. If there's zero struggle to lift the weight, then your muscles aren't really developing. I think this is pretty we…

I don't think it's just age, and I think the comparison to working out is apt. To gain muscle you need to get tired. To restate my previous comment in this framework: to gain muscle you need to struggle; you can go too far and injure yourself but neither is there exercise that is effortless. I'm not sure how the gp even reasons like they do. What does effortlessly learning a new skill look like? You're just instantly…

Effotless and without struggle are two very different things. Walking a kilometre or two to the shops isn’t a struggle, but it’s not effortless either. It takes effort but it’s pleasant and not a struggle at all. Running would be a struggle. Effortless would be having someone drive you there. See what I mean?

Re: The Unix Pipe Card Game

#88

Post by MomsAVoxell »

I am critical of the typography of these card games. I think the information density problem has not been solved and there is a great opportunity for innovation in the card-game realm vis a vis deeply abstract connotations around which a game system is formed.

That said, I do love to have a bunch of these card sets in a box, out, up in the cabin, for those mountain-side retreats where really, there's nothing actually else to do while the winds howl outside, than to stoke the fire, turn up the lantern, and try to read the freickin' instructions on the very short-sightedly designed, imho, type-set of these card games ..

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