DeVliegendeHollander comments on That Magical Click - Less Wrong

58 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 January 2010 04:35PM

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Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 21 January 2010 07:31:49AM 8 points [-]

I wouldn't be surprised if thinking this way about computer programs transfers fairly well to other fields if people are reminded to think like programmers or something like that. There are certainly a disproportionate number of computer programmers on Less Wrong, right?

Comment author: [deleted] 29 May 2015 12:00:39PM *  2 points [-]

I think not, but but it may matter what is your native language. As mine is not English and programming languages are generally based on it, when I was 12 and exploring Turbo Pascal, I simply thought of it as Precise-English, while what my language tutor taught me was Sloppy-English. (I still don't really understand on the gut level why they tend to compare programming with math! Math is Numberish and Greekletterish to me, while programming is Precise-English! Apparently I really really care how symbols look like, for some reason.) Anyway, if it is your own native language it may be far more confusing why a precise version of it exists and can be executed by a computer and maybe if you overcome that challenge that helps you. I think I would dislike it if programming languages would be based on my language because it would always confuse me that that when they call a class a class, I think of a school class. For example when I was learning assembler, I got really confused by using the term accumulator. I thought those belong into cars - we call batteries accumulators here. I got to be at least 16 years old when I finally understood that words can have multiple meanings and all of them can be correct usage, but even now at 37 I don't exactly like it. It is untidy... but if I had to deal with that sort of challenge that could potentially make me a better problem solver.