Once you learn a syntax fully, it can become impos...
# thinking-togetherc
Chris Knott
03/04/2022, 9:08 AMOnce you learn a syntax fully, it can become impossible to empathise with people who find it confusing. This tweet really shook me out of that.
It's a difficult problem to solve because anyone in the position to even think about new programming languages is already going to have all these calcified brain pathways that really distort their thinking.
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Ivan Reese
03/04/2022, 2:02 PM
Oh this hurts — the fact that C-style colloquially means "programming language syntax".
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wtaysom
03/04/2022, 3:29 PMThe one I notice most with programming having broken my brain is that in a page of English prose, I will identify misplaced commas as though they are the single most important part of the writing. 😿
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Ivan Reese
03/04/2022, 3:33 PM
My god, William, you've just diagnosed me. What has become of us?!
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yeT
03/04/2022, 3:56 PMit is wild how common programming elements/keywords stick out like a sore thumb now, the ifs and thens and ampersands send a brain ping I don’t remember them sending from before learning all of this
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Jess Martin
03/04/2022, 4:57 PMThis related to the "the curse of knowledge", a cognitive bias where knowing something really well makes it more difficult for us to explain or teach it to someone else.
Jess Martin
03/04/2022, 5:00 PMOne of the solutions to this bias is to work closely with novices, which can help us develop an understanding of which concepts are difficult and why through observing the novice grapple with concepts.
Jess Martin
03/04/2022, 5:02 PMalso, another related note which comes to mind is that much of learning a field is becoming fluent with the notation. Once we become fluent, the particulars of the notation, which were so impenetrable at first, drop away and we see merely the concepts behind the notation.
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Jess Martin
03/04/2022, 5:02 PMthink about a high-level pianist reading, for the first time, extremely complex sheet music
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Ivan Reese
03/04/2022, 5:13 PM
Is there any good terminology around that fluency with notation / seeing the concepts behind the notation concept? That feels like there should be a term for that.
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yeT
03/04/2022, 5:19 PMit looks like ‘notational fluency’ is a term in the AP Calculus world
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shalabh
03/04/2022, 9:31 PMreminds me of the following:
we shape our tools, and thereafter our tools, shape us
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