On Fri, May 3, 2024 at 2:48 PM Liam Proven via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> > I failed _O_ level mathematics, and to get onto a science degree > course, I had to do another 6 months of remedial maths just to get me > through the exam. To be told "easy if you did the A level" would have > made me angrily walk out in disgust if it wasn't a mandatory course. > I sucked at math pretty much throughout school. I took first level Calculus three times before I finally got my mind wrapped around the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus (with a little help from LSD in showing me infinity). However, it never prevented me from writing rather involved and complicated computer programs starting in my teen years. For college, I decided I was either going to get into MIT or not go at all, and when I was told that my math grades would not cut it to get into MIT, well then that settled it. I somehow managed to be successful in spite. Thus proving to be complete horseshit all the educators that said if you want to get into a computer career you must be good at math. That worked. It took me a weekend and was no direct use because at the > end of about 32-33 hours of work, I could do a chi-squared test by > hand. So, indirectly, it achieved its purpose. > Very nice. By implementing the algorithm in the computer it planted it in your mind. Great story to illustrate how great a mind-building tool the computer and programming is. It could be said that my math skills were really lacking in the area of logic, in that I did pretty OK in Algebra 1 and 2, but barely passed Geometry as I could never get proofs right, and I ended up with a D in Trigonometry (but there were extenuating circumstances with that). It could have been because I hated homework and studying and Geometry and Trig stuff requires a lot of memorization. But I noticed that when I started going back to school in my 30s towards earning a degree my years of programming had structured my mind to where I could break down problems into little steps and then solve each individually until I arrived at the final answer, much like how one writes a computer program. About a dozen years ago I took up law as a "hobby" and threw myself into that. It turns out programming and law share very similar constructs: a pleading is like a program; the rules of court are the syntax of the basic "programming language" in which the pleading is written; case law are like library calls; and the court is the computer. You submit your program/pleading to the computer/court and it runs...or not, and crashes. And just like a computer, I started to figure out ways that the court can be hacked ;) Anyway, I noticed that when I went back to recreational 6502 programming a few years ago, not only did everything come back to me relatively quickly from my teens, but I found that I was just much better at assembling code, which I attribute to my law hobby. It then began to seem that my practice of law got better after I spent long periods writing 6502 code. Each lent themselves towards helping me get better at the other. It was awesome synergy. But the point is: not everyone can do "high school algebra." I do not > know what age "high school" means to you but very basic secondary > school algebra was _extremely_ hard for me and took years of real work > to master. > ... > "It's as easy as algebra" is reinforcing my point about this stuff > _not_ being easy, natural, obvious, helpful, convenient, clear, > meaningful or useful for most people. > I think it has more to do with just learning the construct, or the language, of the subject. Once you get over that hump, one's basic intelligence then fills in. Every subject has its particular jargon and principles, and having basic competency in that subject is really in memorizing the jargon and principles so you can properly "speak in the language" of the subject. > I wrote an article about 3 new BASIC releases for its 60th anniversary: > https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/basic_60th_birthday/ > > Do go read the first comment. > > It shows how BASIC was immediately apprehensible and memorable in a > way that APL never would be. > It was hard going back to BASIC programming after programming in C and other higher level languages for some many years, but once I got back into it (Applesoft specifically) and remembered all the structured programming techniques my high school computer science teacher forced us to learn, and then applied my years of subsequent experience in crafting and organizing programs, the limitations became easy to overcome. It's fun to overcome the limitations of a simple language and still make a good program, and where I need some specific functionally I desire, Applesoft is extensible through the & "command", which is more of a machine language bridge in that the BASIC interpreter will jump to a user-definable vector at which you put your custom token interpretation code. For example, I made an entire low resolution graphics library that supports sprites and background animation with masking and other advanced features and implemented it by re-purposing existing BASIC command tokens for speed of processing. Yeah, I'm an adult, enjoying programming in BASIC, but it's fun. Those versed in APL would just as readily apprehend and remember an APL program, same as those versed in BASIC. But for one who never did any sort of programming, it's probably all Greek to them. (My apologies to the Greeks.) Sellam
