ubject: Re: [fonc] Historical lessons to escape the current sorry state of
> personal computing?
>
> Hi Ivan,
>
> Please forgive the speculativeness and abstruseness of my response to your
> question ... but it's the best I can do!
>
> The question that's really being
Hi Ivan,
Please forgive the speculativeness and abstruseness of my response to your
question ... but it's the best I can do!
The question that's really being asked here is, 'What is the future of
computing?' -- and I'm not sure it is possible to answer that question in
the abstract, just in the s
On 7/17/2012 9:47 PM, David-Sarah Hopwood wrote:
[Despite my better judgement I'm going to respond to this even though it is
seriously off-topic.]
in all likelihood, the topic will probably end pretty soon anyways.
don't really know how much more can really be said on this particular
subject a
[Despite my better judgement I'm going to respond to this even though it is
seriously off-topic.]
On 17/07/12 17:18, BGB wrote:
> an issue though is that society will not tend to see a person as they are as
> a person, but
> will rather tend to see a person in terms of a particular set of stereot
BGB writes:
>> Well it's clear that it's not their best interest to do that: only about
>> 40% males reproduce in this setup.
>
> it is in the best interest of those who are successful.
>
> if a person works in their own best interests, it may benefit
> themselves, but this is not to say that it
On 7/17/2012 8:56 AM, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
BGB writes:
but you can't really afford a house without a job, and can't have a
job without a car (so that the person can travel between their job and
their house).
Job is an invention of the Industrial era. AFAIK, our great great grand
pare
BGB writes:
> likewise, many people who aren't really programmers, but are just
> trying to get something done, probably aren't really going to take a
> formal approach to learning programming, but are more likely going to
> try to find code fragments off the internet they can cobble together
> t
On 7/17/2012 11:12 AM, Loup Vaillant wrote:
Pascal J. Bourguignon a écrit :
BGB writes:
dunno, I learned originally partly by hacking on pre-existing
codebases, and by cobbling things together and seeing what all did and
did not work (and was later partly followed by looking at code and
writin
On 7/17/2012 9:04 AM, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
David-Sarah Hopwood writes:
On 17/07/12 02:15, BGB wrote:
so, typically, males work towards having a job, getting lots money, ... and
will choose
females based mostly how useful they are to themselves (will they be faithful,
would they
make
Pascal J. Bourguignon a écrit :
BGB writes:
dunno, I learned originally partly by hacking on pre-existing
codebases, and by cobbling things together and seeing what all did and
did not work (and was later partly followed by looking at code and
writing functionally similar mock-ups, ...).
some
David-Sarah Hopwood writes:
> On 17/07/12 02:15, BGB wrote:
>> so, typically, males work towards having a job, getting lots money, ... and
>> will choose
>> females based mostly how useful they are to themselves (will they be
>> faithful, would they
>> make a good parent, ...).
>>
>> meanwhile
BGB writes:
> but you can't really afford a house without a job, and can't have a
> job without a car (so that the person can travel between their job and
> their house).
Job is an invention of the Industrial era. AFAIK, our great great grand
parents had houses.
> I don't really think it is a
BGB a écrit :
people need to live their lives, and to do this, they need a job and
money (and a house, car, ...).
As individuals, in our current society, yes. We can strive for other
solutions, however. A analogy with computing would be to say people
need an http//html browser to search the I
On 7/16/2012 8:59 PM, David-Sarah Hopwood wrote:
On 17/07/12 02:15, BGB wrote:
so, typically, males work towards having a job, getting lots money, ... and
will choose
females based mostly how useful they are to themselves (will they be faithful,
would they
make a good parent, ...).
meanwhile,
On 17/07/12 02:15, BGB wrote:
> so, typically, males work towards having a job, getting lots money, ... and
> will choose
> females based mostly how useful they are to themselves (will they be
> faithful, would they
> make a good parent, ...).
>
> meanwhile, females would judge a male based prim
On 7/16/2012 3:15 PM, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
BGB writes:
and, one can ask: does your usual programmer actually even need to
know who the past US presidents were and what things they were known
for? or the differences between Ruminant and Equine digestive systems
regarding their ability t
Miles Fidelman writes:
> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
>> Miles Fidelman writes:
>>
>>> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
No, no, no. That's the point of our discussion. There's a need to
increase "computer"-literacy, actually "programming"-literacy of the
general public.
Th
BGB writes:
> and, one can ask: does your usual programmer actually even need to
> know who the past US presidents were and what things they were known
> for? or the differences between Ruminant and Equine digestive systems
> regarding their ability to metabolize cellulose?
>
> maybe some people
Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
Miles Fidelman writes:
Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
No, no, no. That's the point of our discussion. There's a need to
increase "computer"-literacy, actually "programming"-literacy of the
general public.
The situation where everybody would be able (culturally, w
Miles Fidelman writes:
> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
>> No, no, no. That's the point of our discussion. There's a need to
>> increase "computer"-literacy, actually "programming"-literacy of the
>> general public.
>>
>> The situation where everybody would be able (culturally, with a basic
>> kn
On 7/16/2012 11:22 AM, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
BGB writes:
general programming probably doesn't need much more than pre-algebra
or maybe algebra level stuff anyways, but maybe touching on other
things that are useful to computing: matrices, vectors, sin/cos/...,
the big sigma notation, ..
Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
No, no, no. That's the point of our discussion. There's a need to
increase "computer"-literacy, actually "programming"-literacy of the
general public.
The situation where everybody would be able (culturally, with a basic
knowing-how, an with the help of the right s
BGB writes:
> general programming probably doesn't need much more than pre-algebra
> or maybe algebra level stuff anyways, but maybe touching on other
> things that are useful to computing: matrices, vectors, sin/cos/...,
> the big sigma notation, ...
Definitely. Programming needs discreete mat
On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 2:20 PM, Miles Fidelman
wrote:
> question becomes: is this a separate discipline, or is it something to be
> incorporated into math and science?
This question is examined at length here: http://www.ageofsignificance.org/
(Unfortunately something seems to have derailed the
On 7/16/2012 8:00 AM, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
Miles Fidelman writes:
Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
Miles Fidelman writes:
And seems to have turned into something about needing to recreate the
homebrew computing milieu, and everyone learning to program - and
perhaps "why don't more peopl
Miles Fidelman writes:
> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
>> Indeed. The French National Education is answering to that question
>> with its educational "programme", and the newly edited manual.
>>
>> https://wiki.inria.fr/sciencinfolycee/TexteOfficielProgrammeISN
>>
>> https://wiki.inria.fr/wikis/s
Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
Indeed. The French National Education is answering to that question
with its educational "programme", and the newly edited manual.
https://wiki.inria.fr/sciencinfolycee/TexteOfficielProgrammeISN
https://wiki.inria.fr/wikis/sciencinfolycee/images/7/73/Informatique_e
On 7/15/2012 2:48 PM, Tomasz Rola wrote:
Not really. Install Python, run interpreter and in black window type:
print "Hello world"
and you are done.
Or, install Racket, run it and in the interpreter subwindow type
(display "Hello world")
and you are done again. Even better, Racket comes wit
Miles Fidelman writes:
> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
>> Miles Fidelman writes:
>>> And seems to have turned into something about needing to recreate the
>>> homebrew computing milieu, and everyone learning to program - and
>>> perhaps "why don't more people know how to program?"
>>>
>>> My resp
Loup Vaillant writes:
> Pascal J. Bourguignon a écrit :
>> Unfortunately, [CS is] not generalized yet, like mathematics of history.
>
> Did you mean history of mathematics? Or something like this?
> http://www.ted.com/talks/jean_baptiste_michel_the_mathematics_of_history.html
Oops, I meant "OR"
Ivan Zhao wrote:
So far, the discussion has mostly being about "how to" fix the current
situation. They are great, but I am more interesting in the
"historical precedences" that we could use as lessons and analogies.
For example, in the plumber case, the lesson could be that
standardization
Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
Miles Fidelman writes:
And seems to have turned into something about needing to recreate the
homebrew computing milieu, and everyone learning to program - and
perhaps "why don't more people know how to program?"
My response (to the original question) is that folks
On 16 July 2012 13:10, Loup Vaillant wrote:
> Pascal J. Bourguignon a écrit :
>>
>> Unfortunately, [CS is] not generalized yet, like mathematics of history.
>
>
> Did you mean history of mathematics? Or something like this?
I think this was a mixture of a typo and inaccurate translation, and
sho
Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
Iian Neill writes:
And I suspect the fact that BASIC was an interpreted language had a
lot to do with fostering experimentation & play.
BASIC wasn't interpreted. Not always. What matters is not interpreter
or compiler, but to have an INTERACTIVE environment, vs.
Pascal J. Bourguignon a écrit :
Unfortunately, [CS is] not generalized yet, like mathematics of history.
Did you mean history of mathematics? Or something like this?
http://www.ted.com/talks/jean_baptiste_michel_the_mathematics_of_history.html
Loup.
___
Miles Fidelman writes:
> And seems to have turned into something about needing to recreate the
> homebrew computing milieu, and everyone learning to program - and
> perhaps "why don't more people know how to program?"
>
> My response (to the original question) is that folks who want to
> write, ma
Iian Neill writes:
> And I suspect the fact that BASIC was an interpreted language had a
> lot to do with fostering experimentation & play.
BASIC wasn't interpreted. Not always. What matters is not interpreter
or compiler, but to have an INTERACTIVE environment, vs. a BATCH
environment.
As f
Ivan Zhao writes:
> 45 years after Engelbart's demo, we have a read-only web and Microsoft
> Word 2011, a gulf between "users" and "programmers" that can't be
> wider, and the scariest part is that most people have been
> indoctrinated long enough to realize there could be alternatives.
>
> Natur
By "Victorian plumbing", I meant the standardization of the plumbing and
hardware components at the end of the 19th century. It greatly liberated
plumbers from fixing each broken toilet from scratch, to simply picking and
assembling off the shelf pieces.
So far, the discussion has mostly being abo
>> "45 years after Engelbart's demo, we have a read-only web and Microsoft Word
>> 2011, a gulf between "users" and "programmers" that can't be wider, and the
>> scariest part is that most people have been indoctrinated long enough to
>> realize there could be alternatives."
>
> I'm not sure how t
On Sun, 15 Jul 2012, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> Ok. I have to rise to this :-)
>
[...]
> See, I'm an engineer, but I write a LOT for a living - proposals,
> papers, presentations, etc. When I'm trying to think through a logical
> presentation of information, a good outliner helps a lot. Worrying
On Sun, 15 Jul 2012, Iian Neill wrote:
> Hi Ivan,
Uhum, it is Tomasz here, not Ivan :-).
> I don't mean to imply that the Eighties was necessarily a Golden Age of
> home-brewed programming, or that it even instilled the best programming
> practises -- i.e., BASIC -- but I think an argument can
Iian Neill wrote:
> Although there are plenty of blogs and forums on programming out there, it's
> really sad that there isn't some mass medium for programming literacy -- and
> I suspect that a big part of it is that, despite its many documented flaws,
> BASIC
> at least had a small and graspable
Ok. I have to rise to this :-)
Tomasz Rola wrote:
On Sun, 15 Jul 2012, Miles Fidelman wrote:
I keep coming back to the notion that transparent tools are really
important - there's something about impedance matching between what
we're trying to do and the tools we use. All too often, computer
On Sun, 15 Jul 2012, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> I keep coming back to the notion that transparent tools are really
> important - there's something about impedance matching between what
> we're trying to do and the tools we use. All too often, computer tools
> seem to make things harder, not easie
On 7/14/2012 5:11 PM, Iian Neill wrote:
Ivan,
I have some hope for projects like the Raspberry Pi computer, which aims to
replicate the 'homebrew' computing experience of the BBC Micro in Britain in
the 1980s. Of course, hardware is only part of the equation -- even versatile
hardware that en
Hi Ivan,
I don't mean to imply that the Eighties was necessarily a Golden Age
of home-brewed programming, or that it even instilled the best programming
practises -- i.e., BASIC -- but I think an argument can be made that
programming literacy -- even bad literacy -- was much more general at that
t
Tomasz Rola wrote:
On Sun, 15 Jul 2012, Miles Fidelman wrote:
Tomasz Rola wrote:
Oh, I mean, yes, everybody can learn to program, but how many have any
kind of their own ideas for their own programs? Of all Lego (ab)users, how
many build their own constructs while the rest is content with copy
On Sun, 15 Jul 2012, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> Tomasz Rola wrote:
> >
> > Oh, I mean, yes, everybody can learn to program, but how many have any
> > kind of their own ideas for their own programs? Of all Lego (ab)users, how
> > many build their own constructs while the rest is content with copying
>
Tomasz Rola wrote:
Oh, I mean, yes, everybody can learn to program, but how many have any
kind of their own ideas for their own programs? Of all Lego (ab)users, how
many build their own constructs while the rest is content with copying
stuff? Of all literate humans, how many have something inter
On Sun, 15 Jul 2012, Iian Neill wrote:
> Ivan,
>
> I have some hope for projects like the Raspberry Pi computer, which aims
> to replicate the 'homebrew' computing experience of the BBC Micro in
> Britain in the 1980s. Of course, hardware is only part of the equation
> -- even versatile hardwa
If we wish to close the gap between user experience and programmer
experience, enabling and encouraging regular users to control their own
environments and experiences, we must do three things:
First, we must eliminate barriers and discontinuities in maturation of the
programmer and the developmen
On 7/14/2012 12:36 PM, Ivan Zhao wrote:
Victorian plumbers
What's the story with Victorian plumbers?
___
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Ivan,
I have some hope for projects like the Raspberry Pi computer, which aims to
replicate the 'homebrew' computing experience of the BBC Micro in Britain in
the 1980s. Of course, hardware is only part of the equation -- even versatile
hardware that encourages electronic tinkering -- and the l
Ivan Zhao wrote:
45 years after Engelbart's demo, we have a read-only web and Microsoft
Word 2011, a gulf between "users" and "programmers" that can't be
wider, and the scariest part is that most people have been
indoctrinated long enough to realize there could be alternatives.
Naturally, thi
45 years after Engelbart's demo, we have a read-only web and Microsoft Word
2011, a gulf between "users" and "programmers" that can't be wider, and the
scariest part is that most people have been indoctrinated long enough to
realize there could be alternatives.
Naturally, this is just history repe
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