Cat HicksGaslight of the century that we made programming totally inaccessible to huge portions of the population and now we're told that the reason is programming can only emerge from the innate genius of the brilliant few
Sasha Akhavi@grimalkina wait I thought I could get it from my chatbot though
@sakhavi the wheels are spinning trying to sort that one out and ensure the genius juice still flows to the right folks
@grimalkina no it’s cool I’m being told the chatbot is one of the geniuses
Comfortably Numb@sakhavi @grimalkina "vibe coding" is an unfortunate consequence of "10x engineer"
Mark Dennehy@grimalkina It's almost like there's some sort of crazy stupid trope that everyone's bought into...
JJ Celery@grimalkina ah the brilliant few is the knitters.
@jjcelery alternate universe belief system that's doing a lot better than us
Hazel Weakly@grimalkina @jjcelery Would love to time travel to that one and take up knitting
@hazelweakly @grimalkina I'd be perfectly happy to just travel back in time and knit some core rope memory, or maybe even sew some space suits
But you know. With credit. 🥲
Yvonne Lam
RootWyrm 🇺🇦
@grimalkina gods, tell me about it. If you want an absolute mindfuck, go look up the history of FLOW-MATIC by one Grace Hopper. The Wikipedia page has the money quote:
"I found it was not a question of whether they could learn mathematics or not, but whether they would. […] They said, 'Throw those symbols out—I do not know what they mean, I have not time to learn symbols.'"
@grimalkina and we have an entire generation of absolute IDIOTS who insist that COBOL is the worst thing ever, it's too antique, nobody knows it, etc.
"whether they could learn [COBOL] or not, but whether they would."
And we've reached the point of substitute literally anything for COBOL. But also only the people demanding everything move to language X, is because they refuse to learn language Y.
@grimalkina "IT MUST BE REWRITTEN IN C," says the C programmer.
"IT MUST BE C++17," says the cult of Bjarne, "C IS OBSOLETE!"
"IT MUST BE RUST," says the child with no actual experience, "BECAUSE OUR IGNORANCE MAKES C++ UNSAFE!"
"IT MUST BE GO," says the marketing twit, "BECAUSE RUST AND C IS TOO HARD."
"IT MUST BE REWRITTEN IN C," they say, "BECAUSE HOLY SHIT GO ISN'T A PROGRAM IT'S JUST DEPENDENCIES!" (Okay, that one's kinda valid.)
And round and round and round we go.
@rootwyrm this level of personalizing essentialism and calling entire groups idiots based on what programming they know feels pretty opposite from my observation rather than a build on it I have to say
@grimalkina I want to hang out with those people then, because in my experience as a developer?
That's all I ever hear, over and over, with each fresh batch. If it's not the new hotness then it's old and obsolete. With very rare exceptions. Ansible's lame, Terraform new best friend, rewrite everything. Still using C, "what, are you too dumb to switch to $CurrentFad?" Going back to, god, FoxPro at least.
(Rust is a whole other level of holy war about how everything else is "unsafe.")
MaysonLancaster@rootwyrm @grimalkina Oberon ftw!
th0ma5@grimalkina That's the mystique that makes everyone think they're getting something from AI that they are not, and why businesses thought things like "business rules" would let "regular" people program, but the truth is that even these language models can't escape the absolutism we all expect from systems and we really need to keep up with the fight for universal procedural literacy
Frank Davies@grimalkina In my experience programming is like any other skill, you practice it a lot and you get better.
But not everyone has the time, health or resources to practice a lot. This was a real problem for some students when I was teaching programming, and it's frustrating to _know_ that practice is the only way to improve but that Real Life gets in the way. I think most teachers feel the same way about some students.
David H. McCoyAgree. And confidence. In the 10th grade, I took Computer Math(why is good story) and was doing okay, until the first exam. Back then, the teachers announced grades ,while handing out the tests.
The “smart” kid, who had a computer at home, always got the highest grades, got the highest grade:92
The teacher then announced the 2nd was an 88, and said “David.”
Something clicked in my brain that day. I believed that I could do it. That 88 changed the trajectory of my life.
@davidhmccoy @grimalkina My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante is a good novel about how genius can end up getting stifled when it comes from the wrong place (e.g. a girl from a poor worker family in 1950s Naples).
In college, the head of the CS program said I need to play less basketball and study hard.
Because I am 6’5”, and one of three black guys in the entire program?
Who can say?
@davidhmccoy @fd93 I love that you got to have that moment
ShadSterling@fd93 @grimalkina same, but it’s not just real life, it’s also the way school turns everything into a checklist and scoring system to game, rather than a space of knowledge to explore and skills to build
Howard Chu @ Symas@grimalkina feels like Apple really sealed the fate of a generation. They made the Apple ][ so friendly to would-be programmers, with full specs and ROM listing. But then they made the Mac as a pure appliance, without even enough RAM to run its own SDK. That was a strong message "programming isn't for you" to so many computer buyers. Total betrayal of the open communities that made them so originally successful.
Irenes (many)@hyc @grimalkina with hindsight, we think there's a lot of truth to that. we wouldn't have agreed in the day, but...
@ireneista @hyc @grimalkina I dunno, I think that was largely a change from computer as an odd toy for dedicated hobbyists who want to play with computing, to computer as a tool for people who want to perform software-enabled tasks without thinking about how computers work or what else they can do. Maybe they could have aimed for non-programmer users without separating them as much, but that sounds like a hard needle to thread
@ShadSterling @ireneista @grimalkina making a computer that encourages one to explore programming doesn't preclude making it useful for running packaged tools. The Apple ][ was already proof of that. But they made a conscious design choice in the Mac that said "don't worry your pretty little head about that. We'll write the software you need." Instead of a message "anyone can learn to program" they declared "only our anointed few can develop software".
@hyc @ShadSterling @grimalkina right, like, it probably seemed like a small and acceptable trade-off at the time... sigh
Collin Donnell@hyc @ireneista @grimalkina I don’t think that addresses @ShadSterling’s point though, because the Apple ][ was in no way as friendly or approachable as a Macintosh. The Mac was also trying to do a lot more than dumping someone onto a BASIC prompt UI-wise. It wasn’t an easy thing they chose not to do out of some kind of malevolence. No one had even built a machine like that before.
@collin @hyc @ireneista @grimalkina right, back when most homes and offices had zero computers, and the few that were in homes were made for hobbyists, nobody with a computer needed to be told they could learn to program (they almost had to to use it at all). But Apple wanted to expand the market to people who weren’t hobbyists, and for that they had to tell people who weren’t interested in programming that computers could do things they were interested in doing
@collin @hyc @ireneista @grimalkina it’s very different now that everybody knows that’s a possibility, and most people have access to computers they aren’t allowed to hack on even if they have the skills. And Apple’s done a lot to hide the possibilities, especially since releasing the iPhone. But I don’t think they did that intentionally with the original Mac - they certainly didn’t need to to have that effect
@ShadSterling @collin @hyc @grimalkina we didn't see intention mentioned anywhere, not directly. certainly we don't think there needs to have been intent for the harm to have been serious and long-lasting
@ShadSterling @collin @hyc @grimalkina
that said, there was this famous thing where Bill Atkinson had a contract requiring Apple to always bundle HyperCard, presumably out of this same concern, and the company almost immediately found a loophole because they wanted to charge extra for it...
we can't know what people thought back then but, like, thinking far ahead was part of what everyone was excited by, yeah?
@ireneista @collin @hyc @grimalkina I took describing Apple as saying "don't worry your pretty little head about that" as attributing intent.
I did some kind of HyperCard workshop in the early 90s, liked it a lot, and was disappointed I didn’t have access to it afterward. It’s a shame they didn’t adhere to the spirit of the contract.
I would love to see not only programming tools for everyone, but users having a right to repair for all software they use
@ShadSterling @ireneista @hyc @grimalkina we still had HyperCard on the Macs in my Jr High in the late nineties. We did some kind of project with it. The equivalent today is writing HTML + JavaScript, which is free in every browser on every platform, so that’s a pretty low barrier to entry.
@collin @ireneista @hyc @grimalkina I mean, sortof… I don’t know that most people know that plain text editors exist, and typing HTML into a word processor won’t be very effective. If you try to view source or inspect the running JavaScript on most modern websites it’s not easy to figure out what’s going on or how things work. And the most common platforms are iOS and Android, and iOS at least prohibits development tools in its App Store
@collin @ireneista @hyc @grimalkina I don’t think the situation today is either strictly better or strictly worse, I think availability of computing power and collaboration are much better, but entry points for beginners and discoverability within development environments are mostly worse.
The key parts of the raspberry pi’s original educational mission were about addressing the later, and they’ve failed despite all the things that are better these days
@ShadSterling @ireneista @hyc @grimalkina if you mean worse than the early 80s, than sure. That was also literally 40+ years ago. Things are quite a bit different now than they were then. Computers do a lot more, and the security environment is vastly different.
@collin @ireneista @hyc @grimalkina yes, I’m still thinking of the context from the earlier post, the time when Apple released the original Mac, and chose to focus on non-programmer users. That computers do a lot more now is part of why it’s so difficult to [imagine how to] make beginner programming tools that can make discovering how to put that capacity to your own use as accessible and empowering while also matching other things they could use it for
@ShadSterling @ireneista @hyc @grimalkina If someone wants to program, I have faith that they can figure out how to get a text editor.
They do allow development tools on iOS, the rule is that they can’t download and execute code which would circumvent App Store review. There’s code editing tools for Python, JavaScript, etc you can get right now. Plus Swift Playfrounds on iPadOS will teach you Swift and then let you publish your own app if you’re motivated enough.
@collin @ireneista @hyc @grimalkina oh, I hadn’t heard that they relaxed the restrictions, that’s good news. Not being able to download code is quite restrictive tho, can’t have any dependencies outside the stdlib, and to really block competing with the App Store they’d have to prevent sharing files with other apps including the Files app. Still, it’s progress
@collin @ireneista @hyc @grimalkina Of course anyone who’s interested enough can figure out they need a text editor and get one, but that’s just one out of too many obstacles, several of which require mostly independent bodies of knowledge, none of which are self-documenting, nor have the sort of clear accessible documentation that was common (and on paper where it didn’t compete for screen space) in the 80s and 90s, …
@collin @ireneista @hyc @grimalkina … and if you don’t know a person who can answer your questions you have to ask online in places where you’re likely to get a lot of bad- or half-answers, inapplicable answers, guesses, and tangential discussions.
(Wow I hate the character limits here)
@collin @ireneista @hyc @grimalkina It’s not enough that someone who’s already “motivated enough” could slog through all the obstacles, to avoid giving mildly interested users the impression that “programming isn’t for you” and instead give everyone the impression that “anyone can learn to program”, we need to make it much less of a slog
@ShadSterling @collin @hyc @grimalkina right... it's nice that it's there, but it's definitely a step down from "machine literally boots into BASIC prompt" in terms of pointing itself out to people
@ireneista @ShadSterling @hyc @grimalkina as it should be. Most people don’t want to be programmers and it shouldn’t get in their way. I don’t even know what the equivalent of that would be today.
@collin @ShadSterling @hyc @grimalkina maybe. you make the usual argument about usability, and we can't disagree. just... it prompted people to think about the machine as something they weren't purely passive towards, and a lot of the active dislike people have towards modern computing is specifically about being pushed heavily into that exact passive-consumption thing, yeah?
@ireneista @ShadSterling @hyc @grimalkina I don’t know. It’s something that should be available if you want it, but the idea everyone needs to literally be a programmer doesn’t make sense to me. Also, Apple only recently put out and heavily promotes Shortcuts, which is on every device and is doing a lot of the same things as far as automating and customizing their system. And it’s only getting more powerful. I don’t really know what more we could expect.
@collin @ShadSterling @hyc @grimalkina we just believe everyone should have the same opportunity to learn to program, for the same reason we believe everyone should have the opportunity to learn to fix their own car: it's an important part of how the world works, and if you can't do it at all, scummy corporations will take advantage of you
@ireneista @collin @ShadSterling @hyc additionally within-field computational pathways create stark economic divides, enough that access to computational pathways is a strong predictor of lifetime earnings *within* fields, not just between fields
@ireneista @collin @ShadSterling @hyc fine with me that this thread has taken on a conversation about the nuances of tooling :) but my original observation was about how we cannot backwards infer who CAN ever succeed at programming simply based on who HAS (given the selection biases of the preconditions for learning -- exactly as you point out @ireneista , "the same opportunity to learn")
@grimalkina @collin @ShadSterling @hyc oh! thank you, yes. we have to admit, we re-read our earlier words nervously several times as you added to the thread, to see whether we'd been sufficiently proactive with how we said that lol
@grimalkina @collin @ShadSterling @hyc shit, wow. that's horrifying. like, it's kind of what we'd expect but hearing it's quantifiable is :((((((
@ireneista @collin @ShadSterling @hyc it is a big part of what Ashley works on -- teaching programming in biology so that all the students who go into life sciences do not get "sorted" onto lower pay & face barriers away from computational pathways, while comp bio as a subfield is calcifying and replicating the same exclusions that biology previously triumphed over (it is one of the most diverse STEM fields). Discipline-based computing teaching is really important for preventing this!
@collin @ShadSterling @hyc @grimalkina we aren't really personally very interested in the topic of what it is or isn't reasonable to expect for-profit corporations to do. they already decided to be the oppressive thing, it should not be a surprise that they wind up in no-win situations as a result of that. we're a lot more interested in figuring out what the ideal world would be like, so we can navigate towards it
@ireneista @ShadSterling @hyc @grimalkina they do have the opportunity. There’s an incredible number of resources freely available.
I was pointing out that Apple literally ships and promotes an automation tool that uses programming concepts on every device. I don’t see what’s oppressive about the situation unless you think we should all be dumped into a prompt in 2025. If anything, it’s probably gotten easier over time.
I have no idea/don’t care what’s happening on Windows.
@collin @ShadSterling @hyc @grimalkina there isn't anything we really feel comfortable saying about Shortcuts in particular, since we haven't used recent versions of OS X. we don't feel that that stuff is an adequate replacement though. like, we've seen a lot of iterations of Apple's simplified programming environments over the decades, and the only one that was any good for learning actual programming was HyperTalk.
@grimalkina the usual capitalist bullshit, trying to restrict everything to as few “winners” as possible.
It’s really frustrating that even our fiction is overloaded with Chosen Ones, nothing important is done by a deep coalition of ordinary people who just care and work; every example set up to prevent us from discovering how to work together to achieve more for everyone