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Comment by opsbdb76 | Hacker News Reader

Excel can be beautiful and pain free and I would still hand over my taxes to an accountant. Its all nonsense that everyone needs to code or enjoy it. And that the tools are the issue.

As a non programmer with a PhD its a waste of my time, memory and energy that could otherwise be spent on my own domain. Its much simpler to have a 10 minute chat with a professional coder to get what I need.

Similar to the waste of time and skill development required to explain complex domain knowledge to the public. Talking instead to a professional writer makes my life much easier. I dont want to think about what tools the accountant, coder and writer use.

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I experience these things differently. I'm not a writer but I'm still able to read and write. I don't have a writer (scribe) next to me that translates things I think into this little text box, whenever I need it. Similarly I don't call an accountant to plan my holiday budget.

We can do all of those things on our own to a reasonable degree as it gives us a degree of autonomy that we wouldn't have otherwise. That's the basic level. But perhaps more importantly it has spiritual impact as it enables different perspectives and types of thinking and doing.

This is a lot like saying “I choose not to drive, but it’s nonsense that people think cars are the issue.”

You’ve made a choice within your time management framework to not take on the challenge of writing software. Rather than ponder the situation if it weren’t the challenge it is today for you to accomplish what you need with a computer, you declare the mere thought of that itself to be nonsense. That is nonsensical and, frankly, quite odd coming from a researcher.

This makes sense to be domain specific. But it’s all in the realm of what interests people.

Personally, I like to code, I like to draw, I enjoy maths, music and many other things. All of those skills actually augment each other: geometry aids art, art aids programming and so forth.

I don’t agree with Bret Victor though I think design and algorithms should actually be explored with pen and paper and through other means. And I think the current way of doing things is okay like in REPLs but understanding the design and ideas outside of the computer is crucial.

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