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I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

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Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#91

Post by sam0x17 »

DistractionRect wrote: post #55
skizm wrote: post #18

Meta point: I'm curious of people's thoughts when OPs in general post "I'm N years old..." or "I'm a blind programmer who..." before posting something unrelated to their life situation. Personally I think this falls into the "girls do not exist on the internet" rule of thumb. No reason to state that you're a girl (or 12 years old or whatever) other than to prime people to look upon your writing with lower standards.…

Mixed feelings, but overall, I think it does two things: - promotes more civil discussion. Commentors are less mean, less dismissive, and when posting criticism it's usually more constructive - gets the article more attention/traction than normal as a subset of the audience is impressed by the accomplishment/effort given the backstory Which both benefit the author, and that's fine. We talk about hooks and marketing a…

Yeah, for me the breakout interesting thing about this post was that it was written by a 17 year old.

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#92

Post by oytis »

skizm wrote: post #18

Meta point: I'm curious of people's thoughts when OPs in general post "I'm N years old..." or "I'm a blind programmer who..." before posting something unrelated to their life situation. Personally I think this falls into the "girls do not exist on the internet" rule of thumb. No reason to state that you're a girl (or 12 years old or whatever) other than to prime people to look upon your writing with lower standards.…

Internet is a different place now. People bring their personalities and identities in. Don't think there is anything wrong with it. Also nothing wrong with being more patient with very young people and more impressed with their achievements IMO.

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#93

Post by ethbr0 »

archmaster wrote: post #54
ethbr0 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not author, but I've always wanted to approach programming from an algorithms-first perspective with younger kids. Not called algorithms, of course. If they can create/combine algorithms to solve a problem... that's most of programming. I'd start with the "robot" problem: have them write a set of steps to complete a simple task, and then have them (or better, someone else) go through the steps precisely (no cheating…

Interesting! I've always been most interested in conveying information to people — human-computer interactions, interface and app design, educational writing like this article. Before I got into programming I was OBSESSED with this amazing circuit-building thing called Snap Circuits as a kid (highly recommend, definitely get a starter set for your kid if you haven't already), but even with that I just wanted to build…

Snap Circuits looks awesome! LEGO + breadboarding

To date myself, for me it was the computer game The Incredible Machine, which was a Rube Goldberg physics puzzle game... in 1993 on DOS. ;)

Critically, the failure-iteration loop was tight, which really impressed "if at first you don't succeed, try try again" on my younger self.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pTbSMKGQ_rU&t=27s

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#94

Post by cxr »

archmaster wrote: post #14

Hi! I'm Lexi, I wrote this article/mini-book. There's a classic question of "what happens when you load a website?", but I've always been more interested in "what happens when you run a program?". About 3 months ago, I was really annoyed at myself for not knowing how to answer that question so I decided to teach myself. I taught myself everything else I know in programming, so this should be easy, right? NOPE! Appare…

[removed]

1. https://manybutfinite.com/category/internals>

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#95

Post by l__l »

bdcravens wrote: post #32
skizm wrote: post #18

Meta point: I'm curious of people's thoughts when OPs in general post "I'm N years old..." or "I'm a blind programmer who..." before posting something unrelated to their life situation. Personally I think this falls into the "girls do not exist on the internet" rule of thumb. No reason to state that you're a girl (or 12 years old or whatever) other than to prime people to look upon your writing with lower standards.…

I don't think it's any worse that appealing to authority ("patio11 said that ....") or referencing that you were in YC. In those cases as well, quality should stand on its own. Even so, I think context helps, and it's not always the same as having lower standards.

Not commenting on whether it's good/bad, but I think it's completely different to your examples. Both of those say "here is context of my past achievements; this is an indication that what follows may be of high absolute quality"

As opposed to the "I am N years old", which is saying "here is context, which doesn't by itself indicate achievement, which may be an indication that what follows is of high relative quality"

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#96

Post by SantalBlush »

wholinator2 wrote: post #39
skizm wrote: post #18

Meta point: I'm curious of people's thoughts when OPs in general post "I'm N years old..." or "I'm a blind programmer who..." before posting something unrelated to their life situation. Personally I think this falls into the "girls do not exist on the internet" rule of thumb. No reason to state that you're a girl (or 12 years old or whatever) other than to prime people to look upon your writing with lower standards.…

I think kids tend to do it in traditionally adult spaces just as a buffer from the extreme criticism that can exist online. Saying, "someone wrote a cpu guide" has a lot less impact than saying "a teenage girl wrote a cpu guide". I don't think the individual behind the content is all that important and we have to recognize that we only ever see the kids that tell us they're kids, i could be an 8 year old prodigy for…

Encouraging youth is a good thing. But I suspect that the youth most in need of encouragement are the sort of kids who wouldn't even have the courage to post something to HN. Maybe I'm wrong. But I think that's why these things rub me the wrong way.

These things always strike me as merely fishing for praise, while trying to stifle legitimate criticism, which is unfair to everyone else, old and young alike.

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#97

Post by phillipcarter »

archmaster wrote: post #14

Hi! I'm Lexi, I wrote this article/mini-book. There's a classic question of "what happens when you load a website?", but I've always been more interested in "what happens when you run a program?". About 3 months ago, I was really annoyed at myself for not knowing how to answer that question so I decided to teach myself. I taught myself everything else I know in programming, so this should be easy, right? NOPE! Appare…

This is a great website! Really enjoyed reading it this morning. I wish I had something like this to supplement the really dry textbook I had to read in Operating Systems class in college. Reminds me a bit of Learn You a Haskell for Great Good, which was similarly an excellent supplement to the dry textbook: http://www.learnyouahaskell.com/

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#98

Post by archmaster »

kriro wrote: post #79
archmaster wrote: post #14

Hi! I'm Lexi, I wrote this article/mini-book. There's a classic question of "what happens when you load a website?", but I've always been more interested in "what happens when you run a program?". About 3 months ago, I was really annoyed at myself for not knowing how to answer that question so I decided to teach myself. I taught myself everything else I know in programming, so this should be easy, right? NOPE! Appare…

I only browsed this but it seems like a pretty cool primer. Loving the style as well. It's also a very good idea to write these types of resources when you teach yourself something new because it clarifies your thought process and helps you identify parts that are still unclear even though you initially thought you understadn them etc. I also liked this at the end: """ I talked to GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 a decent amount wh…

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

> It's also a very good idea to write these types of resources when you teach yourself something new because it clarifies your thought process and helps you identify parts that are still unclear even though you initially thought you understadn them etc.

I found this to be very much the case. As I wrote the article, I discovered so many things that I didn't properly understand. It partially took so long because I ended up going down mini rabbit holes every step of the way. And now I understand stuff a lot better!

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#99

Post by wizzwizz4 »

kkoncevicius wrote: post #66
lovich wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of a tangent off your point but you’re referencing the "girls do not exist on the internet" phrase like it was used by people to say don’t bring your identity onto an anonymous forum. Was that how it was used? Back in my forum and chan days when that phrase was common I only saw it used to explicitly try to force women off the internet. It was usually quickly followed up with “tits or gtfo” for instance and I ne…

I've always understood "tits or gtfo" to suggest that if you are mentioning you are a girl then do something related to it (show breasts) or else shut up about being a girl when its not relevant.

That's on the charitable side. It reads to me more like "a woman's acceptance in this community is predicated on her providing sexual favours". But your interpretation still reveals an issue: men are allowed to express themselves in small (and often large) ways that are "not relevant", so why this (pervasive) attitude when women do it?

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#100

Post by archmaster »

mgaunard wrote: post #59
archmaster wrote: post #14

Hi! I'm Lexi, I wrote this article/mini-book. There's a classic question of "what happens when you load a website?", but I've always been more interested in "what happens when you run a program?". About 3 months ago, I was really annoyed at myself for not knowing how to answer that question so I decided to teach myself. I taught myself everything else I know in programming, so this should be easy, right? NOPE! Appare…

I haven't done the research, but I can't believe most of the information could be that hard to find or wrong, at least if you know where to look. These sorts of topics are usually well-covered in the matching undergraduate-level computer science courses (computer architecture and operating systems, which, these days, are mostly optional since out of fashion). Several universities have free courses available, and some…

"Wrong" is perhaps not the most accurate word. I most often found information to be either extremely oversimplified such as to be unhelpful, or outdated and no longer relevant for current systems. Although, yes, some things were just wrong.

There are courses and presentations and books, but there aren't many websites or articles — and that's the learning style that works best for me. Undergrad programs will teach a lot of what I covered (though certainly not all, and it really depends on the program) but I believe that knowledge should not be gatekept on going to college.

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