(OTOH I hope that the work I do for programmers mi...
# thinking-togetherd
David Piepgrass
04/03/2019, 1:25 PM(OTOH I hope that the work I do for programmers might become part of the underlying infrastructure of tools for non-programmers.)
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Duncan Cragg
04/03/2019, 2:52 PM.. and I'd like to take this opportunity to once more assert that I, for one, am pursuing the Future of Programming, for non-Coders š
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Will
04/03/2019, 5:01 PMI think about it as: in a future with sufficiently good education and tools, everyone is a programmer.
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Mariano Guerra
04/03/2019, 6:56 PM
but that future programmer won't seem to be "programming" from the current perspective/definition
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wtaysom
04/04/2019, 12:36 AMThough I'm really oriented along a different axis. It's not Programmers vs Non-programmers so much as... well it's not Professionals vs Amateurs either, but that's getting closer. I mean sometimes it's great to get an 80% solution quick. Sometimes it's great to get a 99.9% solution through endless tweaking, blood, and tears. So maybe there's another direction, call it up, that's neither quick nor twiddly.
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Dan Cook
04/04/2019, 2:16 AMMy future makes that line very blurry and way to cross. There's still a spectrum, but much less of a barrier. So, it's definitely for both
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Peter van Hardenberg
04/04/2019, 9:58 PMliteracy : programming :: author : programmer?
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Duncan Cragg
04/04/2019, 10:09 PMlawyers are programmers. anyone who creates rules, in their local photography club or their United Nations, are programmers. Programming is still elite in those cases, but much more 'normal'
Duncan Cragg
04/04/2019, 10:10 PMScience involves modelling, so scientists are often programmers. Still elite though.
Duncan Cragg
04/04/2019, 10:11 PMMaybe "programming" in this broader sense is always destined to be an elite occupation..
Duncan Cragg
04/04/2019, 10:15 PMHaving said that, maybe education and society make it so: children absolutely love making up rules and games and confabulating reasons why things are the way they are ("science")
Duncan Cragg
04/04/2019, 10:16 PMwhich is what @Will was alluding to perhaps
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Will
04/04/2019, 10:20 PMIn educational circles they like to call this ācomputational thinking,ā which is ill-defined but most closely captures the skill set Iām envisioning. One definition: the ability to understand, use, modify, and create formal languages (programming languages, law, mathematics, games, ā¦). Bonnie Nardiās book āA Small Matter of Programmingā does a good job explaining the universality of formal languages.
Will
04/04/2019, 10:21 PMIn the future, I think that computational thinking (CT) can be seen as a basic skill all people should have, just like standard literacy. Right now, our concept of CT is heavily tied to computers, which is bad because computers are counterintuitive and designed to work in accordance with the laws of physics, not the laws of human thought.
Will
04/04/2019, 10:22 PMHowever, I think with sufficient understanding of humans and formal languages, we could develop an education around CT that teaches these skills in a way everyone can appreciate and benefit from, leading some people to be programmers, but more generally leading to a society where everyone can apply computational ideas to all walks of life. Crafts (see knitting languages), law (distinguishing precise from ambiguous language), whatever
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Will
04/04/2019, 10:23 PM(so, in that sense, what I said wasnāt quite right--itās not true that everyone should a programmer, but everyone should be a computational thinker!)
Will
04/04/2019, 10:25 PMFor example, I think the foundational ideas of precision (formal languages, syntax/grammar, semantics), abstraction (variables, functions), and modularity (interfaces, encapsulation, exchangeability) should be universal skills in the same way arithmetic, literacy, historical interpretation, etc. are.
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Will
04/04/2019, 10:27 PMIāve sometimes referred to this as ācomputational literacyā as well. (Thanks @Duncan Cragg for reminding me to expand on the comment.)
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Duncan Cragg
04/04/2019, 10:35 PMšš¼
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