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Comment by mindstab | Hacker News Reader

> most people don't know what programming even looks like

My mom recently (2012) just asked me if when I'm programming, the screen is full of symbols, kind of like the matrix.

Many people I know consider computers "illogical". We could do a lot to help people understand how a computer works, and the best way is through programming.

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And I convinced a friend of mine that in Python, we only code using the letter "s". Why do you think it's called Python, after all? She believed me.

To be fair, all programs sort of get reduced to 1s and 0s. Given this fact, I don't consider the idea of coding only with the letter 's' that much of a stretch. You know, in lisp I code with parentheses!

I know you're joking and this isn't really too relevant to your comment at all, but the 1s and 0s thing that non-techies fixate on is just stupid.

Programming (and computers in general) have nothing to do with 1s and 0s and saying stuff like "at the end of the day, its all 1s and 0s" is like saying that at the end of the day banking just comes down to scrap pieces of pressed tree pulp or a bakers job is just about a bunch of grain or a teachers job reduces to sitting in a room for a few hours or whatever silly analogy you want to dream up.

All of these things are implementation details that, really, are irrelevant to pretty much everyone everywhere. If you are dealing with low level digital systems you will encounter 1s and 0s (and analog voltage and resistance and capacitance and a whole lot more besides), but usually (especially when building something complex like a computer) this gets abstracted away pretty quickly.

For the record, I was mostly serious. I was half-joking about the Lisp part. This is not really related to your comment, but just to clarify: I'm serious that coding using just 's' doesn't sound that unreasonable. If you're a professional programmer, sure, you know you need more characters than that to be productive. But I wouldn't fault a lay-person, even one who has some knowledge of coding, for believing someone who said they programmed using only 's'. Plenty of weird programming languages are possible. Take a look at http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Reverse_a_string#Brainf.2A.2A.2A.

I get that, I meant you're joking in that I don't think you believe that programming or computers really does just boil down to 1s and 0s in a way thats at all relevant to programming - there is, of course, a tiny grain of truth in that, but not one that is IMHO at all important, though most non-techies don't know that and they're told that computers are just 1s and 0s.

I did not at all think you were joking when you asserted this:

Given this fact, I don't consider the idea of coding only with the letter 's' that much of a stretch.

Which I completely agree with.

Also, while being a joke, there is a language that uses only semicolons: http://pksunkara.github.com/semicolon/

Actually, you can get pretty close by coding in Semicolon:

http://pksunkara.github.com/semicolon/

Actually, APL programmers do code with a screen full of symbols.

http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_triangle#APL

I'm beginning to think your mom is smarter for not knowing how to code, because she hasn't been biased yet by exposure to mainstream tools.

I understand your point, but I am having a hard time accepting use of the word "smarter" to describe ignorance.

Perhaps there is value in a blank slate, but that is definitely not being smart.

There's a usefulness to coming at a problem from a completely new direction, but it's orthogonal by virtue of being orthogonal. Why is the alphabet the best way? Couldn't we express ideas better? (And I actually keep an eye on the constructed language space, so I actually know people who say, "Yes.")

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