Computers are for humans

Your post doesn't make sense to me and I think it's because you misunderstand what programming actually is. Programming, at it's core, is just the act of giving the computer commands to execute in a certain way. There is no way to automate a process using a computer without using programming. So what you suggest, is only possible in two ways. Build an artificial intelligence that programs for us and decides what we want or somehow code a piece of software that can solve any problem and automate any task. Neither of which are currently possible or really desirable (imagine the bloat of the software).

Everyone should learn to program, even at the highest level of abstraction (python, visual basic, SCRATCH), just so they understand what the tool (computer) they have in their hands is capable of.

People go through their everyday lives not even considering automating certain tasks because they haven't been exposed to what programming can do. People go through their days not understanding when they are being ripped off or blatantly stolen from. They don't know what is secure and what isn't. Learning to program solves these problems.

To quote Ben Franklin "Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security."

Disclaimer: I am slightly biased. I don't agree with what Steve Jobs stood for. I don't believe people should become mindless content consuming drones nor do I believe in walled gardens. If I buy 3 acres of property I don't want to be locked in .5 acres because of a damn hedge.

Great post. The HN community is totally biased because most folks here are very comfortable programming. What this biases is the ability for this community to imagine that it's a lot harder for a lot of other people to program than it is for them. If it weren't, you wouldn't be in such high demand at such terrific salaries.

Programming is hard, especially for minds that are not well accustomed to breaking things into linear series of events. I have a visual mind, for example, but have a lot of trouble turning multi-dimensional concepts into linear programming treatment.

Just as we would not suggest everyone would be capable of calculus, we can't expect everyone to program. Now we can expect everyone to have some exposure to calculus, and I think many folks just would like to see the masses have some exposure to programming. And that's great.

But please do recognize that programming is not intuitive for everyone!

"If the computer is a bicycle for the mind, what kind of bicycle requires you to speak Chinese to pedal faster?"

I'm sorry? What sort of bicycle magically allows you to ride it without putting in any learning effort? You're forgetting that everybody has to learn to ride a bicycle and nobody is any good at it at first.

In the 80's Apple had HyperCard, a tool designed to make programming easy for novices.

«... HyperCard is an echo of a different world. One where the distinction between the “use” and “programming” of a computer has been weakened and awaits near-total erasure. A world where the personal computer is a mind-amplifier, and not merely an expensive video telephone. A world in which Apple’s walled garden aesthetic has no place.» http://www.loper-os.org/?p=568

Maybe the author is confusing computers with consumer devices... I subscribe to the notion that the iPad is a consumer device (i.e. family of the Walkman), not a computer.

This misses the point. The beauty of learning programming is that you stop depending on others to make something simple to use, and can instead do it for yourself.

I agree that computers should have intuitive interfaces and should bend to people rather than the other way around. I also think that most computers should and will be more like iPads and iPhones, essentially smart appliances.

However, just because we can see a future where computers bend to the whims of users, ignorance is not bliss.

Computers are becoming an ever increasingly important part of most peoples lives. Saying that you shouldn't have a fundamental understanding of how they work only leaves you open to being hurt by those machines that you interact with every day.

Take phishing scams, and drive by downloads. In large part these occur due to ignorance of the user on a fundamental level. Of course, computers need to be much smarter and prevent these types of attacks all-together. But in a world where some people understand computers on a fundamental level, and others do not, you'll always see those with knowledge taking advantage of those without.

Ultimately people shouldn't learn to programming because it makes bending computers to their will easier (though it does). Instead people should learn basic programming to better understand that which they fundamentally rely on.

"Apple understand that the responsibility lies with their software to adapt to humans, not with humans to learn the ins and outs of unintuitive software."

This isn't how Apple does things.

Apple computers do not adapt to users. They do things in the "Apple Way". Users must learn that way or suffer.

The good thing about this complete refusal to adapt to users is that everyone has exactly the same Apple experience. You don't have to ask Apple users what shell or window manager they're using. This makes finding help easier and, in theory at least, should make it easier to eliminate bugs (Lion is actually very buggy). Arguably, small bugs and inconsistent behavior do more to confuse neophyte users than large interface flaws.

Apple's motto, "think different", should really be, "think like us". Is that good for the computer illiterate? Perhaps. Still, I'm a bit amazed that some power users put up with the rigidity of OSX and apparently seem to like it. I've used it off and on a few times over the last decade (I most recently used Lion for about a year) and it's always a relief to go back to an OS that is designed to adapt.

I like the thought behind this, but not sure it makes sense to me. How do you expect computers will get to be as smart as you want them to be if people don't learn to speak their language? Are you assuming that only the select group of people who are already programmers are capable of making computers smarter? I disagree with that.

Even if the above were true, it would still take time to make computers "smarter". I don't think it's necessarily about technology, it's about changing the infrastructure and the paradigm. That takes time. What is the rest of the population to do in this latency?

As a side, your post also suggests that there will come a time when computers will computer themselves and people will never have to do anything. That doesn't make sense logically.

I don't think he's arguing that more people in other fields should not learn to program, rather that the primary goal of general computer use is to make easier/enhance the lives of its users. This goal is of course ultimately derived from the hard work of the programming community, of which should always be accepting of more participants. We just have to keep in mind that computers should always serve their primary goal, and those that choose to work with computers on a deeper level (programming) should always keep that goal in mind, you don't create a program for the general user that requires them to know programing in order to use it

The last paragraph bugs me. It gives the lie to the assertion that computers need to be smarter. What he is really suggesting is two classes of people: The knowledge Haves and knowledge Have Nots.

It is a reasonable and useful principle for a business to focus on being more user friendly. But it is a scary ideology to suggest that most people should not bother to act with agency or become more empowered to handle it themselves. The logical outcome of such an ideology is a world filled with sheep and run by the handful who have de facto power and who serve as both wolf in the fold and guardian sheepdog at the same time.

I completely agree and I think this is a much better attitude than the increasingly popular ideology of making the application just do the right thing INSTEAD of exposing options. Obviously the default should be to do the right thing but without options users feel like they are being controlled by machines which is simply not what we want. I know lots of luddites with this perspective and it ultimately stems from laziness on the part of programmers.

"The reality is that the most basic automation is a task impossible for someone who hasn’t spent months learning to program. Automation is what computers were supposed to help humans with in the first place."

When one wants to express a complex operation (say, automation) one almost resorts to language. Law, mathematics, chemistry, physics, they all use language to help them express complex ideas.

How would you even express simple automation without a language. Macros? Sure, up to a point. Visual tools? Sure, up to a point. Both lead to diminishing returns for their ease use. The benefit of learning the domain language is you have fewer limitations.

Computers are the future, and are the most important piece of technology that currently exists. You either learn how to use them, most effectively, or the future is not for you.

Nicely put, but too utopian for right now. There is still a place for coding skills in many fields where it may have not mattered before, with the ubiquity of computers in workplaces of all types. That being said, I think the 'teach ALL the people how to code' theme lately is overkill.

Author confuses humans with other mammalians which lack abstract thought and language.

  ['current human', 'ape'].each do |new_subject|
    open('http://adeel.ru/notes/computers-are-for-humans.html').substitute('human',new_subject)
   end