Is there anybody out there who still wants to learn programming by hand?
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@mttaggart Learning to program is learning a new way of thinking. I don’t know of any other mind skill that can do it all: Detail orientation. Clarity. Problem solving. Procedures. Functions. Communication. Timing. Simplification. Experimentation. Testing. So much more …but above all, logical thinking. We should teach it in first grade.
You program with your mind, not your hands.
@meltedcheese @mttaggart You’re right, and seeing what you listed out made me realize there are several points of overlap with playing musical instruments. Especially in group settings.
There’s plenty of stories about how important jazz was in the 1920s through the 1960s, and I think the world would be a better place if more people had at least some time spent learning to play an instrument collaboratively in an unstructured environment.
We should absolutely teach the logic and structure of programming and music theory & performance along side the basics of science and history. It’s about engaging your brain in different ways, and heavens know we need more folks to do that.
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@meltedcheese @mttaggart Jeannette Wing calls that “computational thinking”: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~15110-s13/Wing06-ct.pdf
@duarte @mttaggart To me, there isn’t another way (in ordinary consciousness).
I talked with Jeanette Wing on one of my visits to CMU Robotics Lab and CS Department early 99’s. Very impressive then and now. -
Is there anybody out there who still wants to learn programming by hand?
Absolutely. I even using dislike the tools that set up projects for the first time because I then have to go figure out why everything is done the way it is. And don’t get me started on when they install out of date dependencies and everything breaks when I upgrade those. I know nothing yet and find myself in deep water.
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Is there anybody out there who still wants to learn programming by hand?
@mttaggart no, I already learned programming by hand, now I'm just doing it to relax like a psychopath -
@meltedcheese @mttaggart You’re right, and seeing what you listed out made me realize there are several points of overlap with playing musical instruments. Especially in group settings.
There’s plenty of stories about how important jazz was in the 1920s through the 1960s, and I think the world would be a better place if more people had at least some time spent learning to play an instrument collaboratively in an unstructured environment.
We should absolutely teach the logic and structure of programming and music theory & performance along side the basics of science and history. It’s about engaging your brain in different ways, and heavens know we need more folks to do that.
@drsbaitso @mttaggart 100% agreed. Also math, as another person responded. There was a lot of math I didn’t understand until I grasped basic theory of computation, e.g., reversible functions, series and approximation, and much more. I was able to self-learn calculus (integration and differential) after I became a decent programmer. I love music, especially bebop and other collaborative styles, and I get your point. For me, the structure of classical music more easily maps to math and programming.
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@darthnull @mttaggart Do your projects even need frameworks?
@drwho @mttaggart Back-end server, front-end display. Could do server side rendering but everything is client side now so… also that’d be a new challenge.
Problem I’ve had the few times I’ve started is they’re all a royal pain in the ass, documentation is terrible, and require so much yak shaving to get started that it’s months before I feel like trying again.
Perl scripts in cgi-bin was so much easier.
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Is there anybody out there who still wants to learn programming by hand?
@mttaggart I’m over 50 and never learned to code but recently have thought of learning Lua just for a laugh and to keep my brain fresh.
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@mttaggart Yes! I’ve been helping someone pick up C and C++.
I'm advancing my C++ skills as well! I want to master a programming language to enhance my skill set beyond Linux system administration
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Is there anybody out there who still wants to learn programming by hand?
Doubtful these days. Fewer and fewer even hear of it now, so why learn?
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@darthnull @mttaggart @hrbrmstr Learning markup languages and configs is not programming. Writing the HTML compiler is programming.
@meltedcheese @darthnull @mttaggart thx for the hard mute auggestion
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Is there anybody out there who still wants to learn programming by hand?
@mttaggart I’m so keen on it that I even write my pictures by hand.
https://github.com/TRezendes/SVGarden -
Is there anybody out there who still wants to learn programming by hand?
@mttaggart I'm glad I started out that way at the very least
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@drwho @mttaggart Back-end server, front-end display. Could do server side rendering but everything is client side now so… also that’d be a new challenge.
Problem I’ve had the few times I’ve started is they’re all a royal pain in the ass, documentation is terrible, and require so much yak shaving to get started that it’s months before I feel like trying again.
Perl scripts in cgi-bin was so much easier.
@darthnull @mttaggart Gotcha. That was a serious question, by the way, and your answer was equally serious and helpful.
And, agreed.
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Is there anybody out there who still wants to learn programming by hand?
@mttaggart Python really changed my life. Nothing can replace that kind of detailed understanding of language.
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@mttaggart Python really changed my life. Nothing can replace that kind of detailed understanding of language.
@glitterbean Mine too!
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@glitterbean Mine too!
@mttaggart And also if you already know how the spacing is supposed to be as well as the syntax then if you do use an AI agent to help optimize your code you know exactly what prompts to use like a Jedi Master.
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@mttaggart Yes. I've been asked by a couple of people recently (who have not been developers and just dipped their toes in vibe code) how to learn "real programming, not with the bots."
Good. That's where the true power lies.
If you vibe code, you're only as good as your bot, and you can only write what your bot knows how to write.
If you write the code yourself, you can do *anything*.
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@drwho @mttaggart Back-end server, front-end display. Could do server side rendering but everything is client side now so… also that’d be a new challenge.
Problem I’ve had the few times I’ve started is they’re all a royal pain in the ass, documentation is terrible, and require so much yak shaving to get started that it’s months before I feel like trying again.
Perl scripts in cgi-bin was so much easier.
Fun fact: you totally can write CGI scripts in Rust. I know because I recently did!
You don't even need a library. Everything is pre-parsed and stuffed into environment variables for you by the web server.
And, well, it's Rust. It starts up fast. So that shaves off a bunch of the performance overhead that CGI usually suffers from. It's still slow, but a great deal less so than your average CGI script.
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@meltedcheese @mttaggart case in point: as a teenager I was told that good maths skills are a good basis to have when studying CS - it wasn't before several years after graduation - and after meeting several people who had studied maths that I finally understood, why
Especially if you want to do graphics programming, like for game development. To do that, you need to know your trigonometry and whatnot.
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Is there anybody out there who still wants to learn programming by hand?
@mttaggart
I did. or wanted to & scripting refresher, but the previous 4 years has kicked my ass
