Seven-year-olds as hackers, and why we should imitate them
herebeseaswines.net
herebeseaswines.net
Your comment made me think, and I think my view may be all to hidden (between the lines) in my post.
I added this passage, which is more on-point, which I stand by:
My general point is that sometimes we're so focused on producing (2) 'an incredibly good, and perhaps very time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed' that we fail in (1) '[producing] what is needed, but not well' (and thus end up failing in general). In this respect, we should take inspiration from our seven-year-olds. In the best of worlds, we could take inspiration from them with regard to point 1, mentor them to respecting point 2 while making sure not to smother the essence of point 1 - not in them, nor in ourselves.
Also, I am not fully 'serious' with this post! I just thought it was cute, while also containing some interesting points. :)
I am very grateful for your comment! Cheers!
Of course, the trick is to ensure that the bad judgement is not bad enough to take you out of the game.
Seems that's what the parent is around for - let the kid explore while acting as the safety net.
This is definitely not true. Adults have more trouble learning some kinds of new motor skills up to expert level, and if the physical skill requires e.g. extreme flexibility kids sometimes have a less fixed bone structure, but adults are a lot faster at getting to basic competence in new physical tasks by building from past experience, and for any other kind of skill adults can learn much faster than kids.
The real problem adults have vs. kids is available time to spend thinking about things (because they have other responsibilities), not raw learning speed.
Their brains are more flexible and don't have a "fixed [mental] structure", and this is why I think it's very important to promote and encourage creativity and passions from a young age.
There's a lot we can learn from kids, even if we need to filter some things through the wisdom that comes with age. Sometimes they have a tendency to have a machine-learning-esque approach to trying new things, which is fascinating to watch, and then how they take instructional guidance to alter their approach.
This might be an easy article to critique, but there's some good points to be gleamed.
I think this is spot on. As adult you have a big pile of past experiences and responsibilities constantly keeping your mind busy. This makes learning new stuff hard. Lately I have been making an effort to approach things with less worries and baggage. I make an effort to not think “I should be able to do this faster” or “this is useless” but instead just do it without too much thinking.
[0] RSA Animate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
[1] Full talk (55 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCbdS4hSa0s
> Adults fail, seven-year-olds are just sad (in the moment) because they were not able to materialize some grande vision. This is two separate experiences; and perhaps this is precisely why seven-year-olds are better hackers than adults? …because they don't really fail?
Woah boy, this hit home. I really ought to get back in touch with my inner seven-year-old self.
I think perhaps arguing about the arbitrary nature of definitions will devolve into pedantry. While you are completely correct (e.g. the meaning of "toilet" over time). There is perhaps a better current arbitrary word (mouth hole sound) that implies something deeper. There are immutable essences (or platonic forms) that cannot change that we have been describing with different language since the very beginning. It kind of reminds me of that scene in the matrix where Neo meets the machine father with his daughter who tells him how "love" is just a word. What it implies is what matters. It doesn't matter how you describe it visually or audibly, if you are communicating with someone else, and they are trying to understand you, the reason they ever can is because something exists independent of either communicator, and both have recognized that thing and are willing to acknowledge that.
About the later part: yes, I actually agree!
If you have technical document or research paper there are definitions at the start which are defined for the scope of a document or a paper. Those are still arbitrary but at least they have some value.
> It's sound that our children have us, adults, as role models, that they are inspired by us, by what we do, what we say, and by how we act. However, wiIt's sound that our children have us, adults, as role models, that they are inspired by us, by what we do, what we say, and by how we act. However, with regard to creativity and hacking, you don't have to spend much time building with lego, drawing, playing and discussing to realize that you won't match your seven-year-old in terms of getting things done, solving problems related to creative tasks.th regard to creativity and hacking, you don't have to spend much time building with lego, drawing, playing and discussing to realize that you won't match your seven-year-old in terms of getting things done, solving problems related to creative tasks. [...]
> My general point is that sometimes we're so focused on producing (2) 'an incredibly good, and perhaps very time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed' that we fail in (1) '[producing] what is needed, but not well' (and thus end up failing in general). In this respect, we should take inspiration from our seven-year-olds.
But what you insinuate in your other reply may still be correct! Perhaps this usage makes the notion of a hack, hacker, hacking empty? I believe it's important to be able to say 'I am wrong'. And perhaps I am here. I have not decided what I think yet.
I've dabbled with trying to make a game over the last 5 years or so, and run into this problem every time. As a kid, I learned computer programming partially by making little Visual Basic programs and partially by making a couple dorky little 2D games.
At no point do I ever remember stepping back at my "work" and being frustrated to the point of giving up that whatever I was building didn't look like some professional thing I was trying to emulate.
I was mostly just happy that I could put something together, understand it and learn from it, and then see all the possibilities I could add to it and refine.
That feedback loop of "learn something new", "mess around with it", and then sort of spontaneously refine it and add new features, was super fun, and is what drove me to software engineering as a career.
For example, if I wanted to make a game, I would learn how to import a "sprite". I'd spend a little time drawing a crappy spaceship, and then be thrilled to see it on the screen, responding to key presses. Then, excitedly, I'd add an enemy. Then, "cool, I can have him shoot bullets and add to a counter every time I dodge one".
At no point did I say "my spaceship sucks, and I have no idea if I'm doing this scoring code right... I'm a loser and I'm done". I was having too much fun in the process for that.
But now? My attempts at making a game all start and stop with "I want to make an overhead shooter" and then I try to draw a pixel art spaceship and after a few hours of comparing what I do with the art in "real" games, get frustrated and give up. I want it to look and feel a certain way, and when I don't get that, I feel like the whole project is doomed to failure.
I don't feel this way with what I do professionally, which is primarily front and back end web and mobile app development. When I have to learn something new, I'm confident enough in my ability to learn and improve.
But my hobby stuff, and particularly artwork? Not happening, and I'm not sure how to get past this.
Some of this, I wonder, comes down to expectations of adults vs kids. As a kid, I never expected my stuff to be perfect or professional, and neither did anyone else.
Your picture of your kid's wall hit me. As a kid, I would proudly display my creations, and not care if someone nitpicked it. And of course, nobody did, because I was "just a kid".
But, honestly, if an adult proudly displayed a bunch of amateur artwork he/she drew, that would be really weird, right?
I'm capable of professional quality web development work, because it's what I've focused on for the last 6-8 years, but if someone were to see my amateur "pew pew" spaceship game, it would just be sad... if I haven't magically developed good skills here at this point of my life ("this point" being any point at which you are considered an adult), then I must just be bad at it, right?
I'm sure I can improve, but the combination of being embarrassed by everything I produce, along with a preoccupation with what everyone would think of it, and an impatience for being able to produce something good... it feels like a lot of barriers to get through.
And as a kid, I don't know what the "end goal" was, other than it was just fun to mess around. When I did release something online, I wasn't bothered by criticism and was happy at the praise, but mostly I just liked making the actual thing.
As an adult? Somehow the end goal feels like it's about the end result of releasing the thing, more so than the actual process of making it.
There's something about the lower expectations placed on a kid, and a lack of comparing everything I make to the gobs of talented people on Twitter or Pinterest, combined with a focus on the fun of just "messing around", that makes the whole process of getting better at something (and discovering new things along the way) much less frustrating.