Comment by williamcotton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by williamcotton | Hacker News Reader

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> And they couldn't understand why the value wasn't set, Portal-style, in their new instance.

Is it possible that these students might have other types of intelligence?

I've got friends who are very strong visually and they thrive in visual environments such as MaxMSP and Quartz Composer. They make amazing interactive art pieces. Yet, they seem completely baffled by general purpose programming and symbolic logic. The thing is, you can talk to them and they can absolutely reason about things. They're not incapable of logic, rather a certain expression of logic.

What worries me is that we've created a negative feedback loop. The tools we've created for computing are heavily dependent on symbolic logic. This attracts people who are gifted with symbolic logic. They in turn create more tools that work best for people excel at symbolic logic. And so on and so forth.

I don't think this is an issue with people being incapable of creating mental models. A gymnast has an amazing mental model of their body and it's relation to space and the things in that space. However, we have yet to create computing tools for interactive design that build on top of that mental model. Why is that? Because we engineers have some of the WORST mental models of how our bodies flow through space.

I think this is all mainly an issue with listening, understanding and compassion, traits that seem to be stunted in the software industry. Engineers seem to have a certain predilection to talk over people. We seem to always be waiting for the other person to stop talking.

And I'll take the poetic license one step further and say that our entire industry is incapable of listening. It is always "hey, lets set up coding camps"! What about, "hey, let's set up a symposium where us engineers listen to other people about how they live their lives and what they think!"?

> Engineers seem to have a certain predilection to talk over people

That's overly general: a lot of programmers may be socially inept, but it's neither necessary nor sufficient. Both the examples from above are pretty anti-social, but they also don't happen to have these skills. Likewise, I know some very good programmers who are also good at requirements gathering and collecting domain knowledge, which entails learning from experts and listening to them.

> The tools we've created for computing are heavily dependent on symbolic logic.

The whole notion of computers, for better or worse, depends on symbolic logic. You'll have a hell of a time building a microprocessor whose instruction set is paintings or dance moves. The best case is that we build an interface from symbolic logic to this new, more approachable paradigm.

> They make amazing interactive art pieces.

How much logic can you put in an interactive art project? Can it model anything in the real world? The biggest problem with other paradigms is density: if you want to program via something other than symbolic logic, get ready for incredible fatigue as you try to turn a 10K LOC program into a 500MP painting. Or an 18 hour long dance.

I guess I should clarify: I don't think non-programmers are lesser beings, or that they can't model anything in their heads. But for the sake of programming, the only thing that matters is if you can model a computer. If you have other types of intelligence, that's fine, just know you're going to have a tough go of it when it comes to understanding the code you write.

I mostly agree with what you said. But your proposed solution sounds to me like a reboot of COBOL, which was a failure. I feel like I'm misinterpreting something. Am I?

> What worries me is that we've created a negative feedback loop.

<pedantry> Wouldn't that be a positive feedback loop? </pedantry>

An extension of your argument might be that linguists have also failed these people, as modern languages are represented in symbols (expressed visually and orally).

Try as I might, I am having a difficult time figuring out how to express the previous sentiment through pictures alone. Especially if I want to ensure that others interpret the intent of my expression correctly. Pictionary is a great example of that difficulty. And consider that the concepts expressed in Pictionary are calibrated for a visual medium.

Symbols are precise and concise. Which are two good traits for expressing logic. The later trait is desired, while the former is required.

Don't get me wrong, there are geometric proofs that are much simpler than their symbolic competition. However, that simplicity is on a case-by-case basis in my experience. Where the majority of cases favour symbolic. Although I admit potential bias on this point.

When I think of documentation, pictures are a good way of giving an introduction to a code base. But when it comes down to expressing individual functions and interfaces, pictures can't beat code comments. And even code comments lose against simple enough functions.

If you can figure out a good way to express general purpose programming visually, more power to you. There is probably a good consumer market. But professionally, I believe it would be difficult to compete with symbolic programming. And not just because of inertia, but for the reasons stated above.

Finally, I don't think it is a matter of listening. I understand what it is like not to be able to express myself in a given way. But I also understand that I, like all people, have limitations. And I endeavour to work with people who complement, not just echo, my skill set.

> Is it possible that these students might have other types of intelligence?

It does make you wonder how many people would have made great programmers but gave up because they could not get past the step of learning how to code.

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