Test predicts ability to learn programming

[pjknibbs]

Assembly and BASIC are popular for this reason: they're lower level tools with simpler things, upon which the newer higher level languages are based.

BASIC is in no way a low-level language. The reason it's popular is because of the home computer boom of the 80s, where almost all of them had a BASIC interpreter built in--many of today's older programmers can trace back their start in programming to one of those computers, at least in Europe.

[Observe]

Assembly and BASIC are popular for this reason: they're lower level tools with simpler things, upon which the newer higher level languages are based.

BASIC is in no way a low-level language. The reason it's popular is because of the home computer boom of the 80s, where almost all of them had a BASIC interpreter built in--many of today's older programmers can trace back their start in programming to one of those computers, at least in Europe.

This ^^

You basically have: machine language -> assembly language -> Basic and all the other high-level languages. Basic, in its turn, was influenced by Fortran, which is still used to this day; primarily in certain scientific applications.

BTW, my first programming was using machine language for the Signetics 2650 microprocessor in 1975, to control a variable frequency, synthesized A.C. power supply for the U.S. Air Force.

[Morkonan]

Computer science isn't all that fluid, either. Everyone just comes up with their own new ideas that they think are new just because it has a new name, but really isn't....

Then, distill it - What is it? Here's a "definition" - "the study of the principles and use of computers." (courtesy of Google)

As a rule, anytime you use the same word to define a thing, it's not a "definition."What's a "truck?" "Well, I'm glad you asked that question! It's a truck!" /sigh

I get it, it's the "science of computers." OK. But, courtesy of Wikipedia (All Praise to The Almighty Wiki) -

"... An alternate, more succinct definition of computer science is the study of automating algorithmic processes that scale. A computer scientist specializes in the theory of computation and the design of computational systems.[1]..

Now, that is much more betterer. It's a heck of a lot more meatier than " it's about computers."

IF that is the most succinct definition, that's where one should start when teaching or learning it, right? Sure, there's lots of other stuff, but all of that builds on that concept. If it doesn't, then it's "something else." That's true of every subject, each having their branches of specialization, some becoming fully independent subjects themselves as a result.

What changes instruction in Computer Science? What is the active operator? What is considered "new knowledge?"

A person with an idea, a promise, and the belief that something they're doing is actually different.

Too general. A promise of innovation isn't innovation. A claim that a new ball will roll further isn't innovation unless it does. It won't create a paradigm shift if it doesn't do... what? What must it effect or affect in order to drive true change? There's a nugget deep in Computer Science that will respond to that thing. What's that nugget and what does it pay attention to?

No, it's not easy, since the notion itself screams out that it's not easily predictable. But, like porn, any student of it should know it when they see it.

Rerepresentation of math is more accurate, to the degree that it can have functional properties. ...

THIS IS GOLD. I'm purposefully ignore the part where you went deeper into explaining this sentence. No more explanation is needed nor should the focus be clouded with needless words. Unfortunately, I'm talking now, supplying them all for you.

Is math an "abstraction?" Point to ponder, perhaps. But, what you're really doing is manipulating an existing system, mathematics, to control another system, physics. Mathematics, through all the funky controls implemented, manipulates physical controls to yield a desired result. But, mathematics itself, if it isn't truly the "language of the Universe" isn't the system you're manipulating.

You're re-representing the controls in mathematical terms. Why? Because, mathematics is an abstraction, representing the controls in place over a physical system. And, why math? Precision and rigor, no matter how it's defined. It's also much better than using Portuguese... Besides, things get difficult to really understand at their most basic level without maths. Maybe it is the language of the Universe, just not very well-liked by its inhabitants. I suppose some people like Portuguese, so let them be the "mathematicians."

Math is more of an art than a science, even though we use it in science. I see computers as no different, aside from the fact that we use science to make computers. And if you understand the connection between the three, you start to view modern scientific theories (especially quantum physics, computer modeled events, etc) in a very, very new light, and probably not a positive one when you also realize how wildly inaccurate it is. Add psychology to the mix and you'll be a skeptic of human "knowledge."

I'm a skeptic of what people call knowledge. I think "knowledge" is a misleading term. I also think that most people don't consider our reality very well or very deeply, but that's another subject.

"There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house." - Mother Goose

... As such, the more you know of a processor's assembly, the more you know about what you should and shouldn't do on it.

"Its assembly."

If it changes from time to time, something changes it and it's not fundamental. (Different architecture may require different instruction sets.) There are controls further below, operators that respond to the commands and "make do" stuff. Assembly, in this interpretation, is simply the most basic instruction set for those other things. And, it's the one that is open for manipulation to those uninitiated in the mysteries, since they'd set the house on fire if they were allowed to go any deeper...

If you type out assembly code, you're not moving electrons. You're telling something else to move them. Something in a particular chip or on the board responds, shunting things around according to your command. The existence of 101101101 is not reflected in little ones and zeroes lining up, since ones and zeros don't do anything themselves. There's a fuzzy electron bouncing or reaching, depending on how you look at it, being influenced in its movement, however you look at that, to avoid burning the whole thing down while still making something happen in the "aggregate."

It's not inconceivable to teach from the atomic level. I've tried to do this a couple times, but your average Joe gets too bored. Which, i understand: arduino's are cool, but most people don't want to use them outside of picking up a "shield."

A blacksmith must have an understanding of metallurgy. That's the boring part to people that aren't blacksmiths. In a way, a blacksmith is a practical chemist. A "computer scientist" may need a deeper, more functional, understanding of physics of the quanta, but a programmer needs to have some portion of that understanding as well. A cert carrying Cisco Engineer, some Novel guy, someone humping footballs writing netcode? Not so much. It might help, though.


On the subject of teaching and prediction of performance:

So, what works in other disciplines? That's the subject, right? "How do we make this betterer?"

History is a good subject to start with. It's all about "starts" anyway. Most teaching seems to include a lot of it in early classes. "The history of our subject, part one" is usually <insert class subject here> 101 level. Every textbook is full of "the history of the evolution of the making of the design of the study of the idea that is the result that we now call _____." Surely, that's important in some fundamental way besides an instructor bragging on how far we've come since the days when we actually had to chase our food.

I've had friends, mostly women, who decided to go into the profession of teaching. I can only assume, since I paid little attention, that such subjects start off with discussing Plato and a bunch of Greeks arguing with each other as students watched.

But, I also assume that they don't actually... do this. They don't move chairs around and then get students to stand up and start "teaching" in Teaching 101. If they don't do that, how can they be reasonably expected to understand how teaching has evolved and how it has improved? Or... has it?

If Computer Science is looking for a better way to teach and, perhaps, be able to predict a student's success given a set of teaching conditions, it may need to look to other professions, even ones some would consider to be unrelated. How do these professions achieve their goals with success? Copy that. Paste it. Save.

This is the kicker with computers, and why it's especially difficult. We see it a little with arduino, but, in reality, we both make and use the tools. This topic is often hard to me in terms of game dev. I really want to make a game where it's moddable at the core. Thus, i'm a tool maker, not a tool using game maker.

I had a similar idea. I wanted a game that I couldn't predict and one that readily accepted complexities and responded to them. And, not just through some RNG, either. I wanted a game that built its own rules and changed them in response to "x" much like a person would, but still within certain limits. (Basically, "AI.")

A long time ago, in a basement far far away, I started coming up with a grand strategy modern warfare game. It was all just numbers with some primitive graphics, but I had loads and loads of data on units, strengths, weaknesses, terrain, etc. But, I sucked at programming, so it never got to the point where it would "do." I made a character generator and a sort of adventure maker for D&D, instead. That was easy. Thus ended my dream.

You'd be surprised how well a race-car driver knows about their automobile...

Well, kinda. I had a race-car driver that would constantly solicit me for sponsorship. We bought some tires for him and he plastered our name on the side of his car. Tiny letters. You get bigger letters if you pay more.

Race-car driver "professionals" are Professionals. They have an in-depth knowledge of their field including how to change blinker fluid and all the other stuffs they should know about their tools. They have a specialized knowledge and capability inside their field, though.

A point spawned from another post, can't remember who's or where: As a college student, I once got offered a job working on a classified military project, simply because I could "computer." WTF? My "do computer" was pretty much limited to "make this fookin' thing run game and make this other thing get pr0n from teh bbs." And, one of the leads on the project, who wasn't computer literate, was scrambling to get staffed. I told him I sucked. He didn't care. "We'll get you taught, just show up and you're golden." The project got buku funding and is all over the place, today, revealed in the open, mostly, and still managing to get bunches of dollars thrown at it. Eventually, it'll all hit "sci-fi-reality" in a few years. I keep kicking myself whenever I think about it. But, no regrets, really, as I have no desire to make more of an idiot of myself in public on that scale. I'll just stick it out here in OT and accomplish much of the same thing, with less volume.

[JSDD]

"ability to learn" is an inherent capability of all living creatures, isnt it ?

"programming" is nothing more than a sequence of instructions, what varies is the "language" in which these instructions are written ... i'm sure that every monkey can learn "program" a machine to give them a banana if you teach them the language ... there's no magic behind it

[kohlrak]

Assembly and BASIC are popular for this reason: they're lower level tools with simpler things, upon which the newer higher level languages are based.

BASIC is in no way a low-level language. The reason it's popular is because of the home computer boom of the 80s, where almost all of them had a BASIC interpreter built in--many of today's older programmers can trace back their start in programming to one of those computers, at least in Europe.

Some processors execute basic without compilation. Technically, this makes BASIC a dialect of assembly. Not my argument, per se, but I've heard it before and i think it's a legitimate stance. It is certainly low level, even if interpreted.

Assembly and BASIC are popular for this reason: they're lower level tools with simpler things, upon which the newer higher level languages are based.

BASIC is in no way a low-level language. The reason it's popular is because of the home computer boom of the 80s, where almost all of them had a BASIC interpreter built in--many of today's older programmers can trace back their start in programming to one of those computers, at least in Europe.

This ^^

You basically have: machine language -> assembly language -> Basic and all the other high-level languages. Basic, in its turn, was influenced by Fortran, which is still used to this day; primarily in certain scientific applications.

BTW, my first programming was using machine language for the Signetics 2650 microprocessor in 1975, to control a variable frequency, synthesized A.C. power supply for the U.S. Air Force.

If you do know machine language, then you should also know that assembly is only a level of transcription, rather than translation. Either that, or you skipped learning assembly, at which point i feel really sorry for your programming experience.

Computer science isn't all that fluid, either. Everyone just comes up with their own new ideas that they think are new just because it has a new name, but really isn't....

Then, distill it - What is it? Here's a "definition" - "the study of the principles and use of computers." (courtesy of Google)

As a rule, anytime you use the same word to define a thing, it's not a "definition."What's a "truck?" "Well, I'm glad you asked that question! It's a truck!" /sigh

I get it, it's the "science of computers." OK. But, courtesy of Wikipedia (All Praise to The Almighty Wiki) -

"... An alternate, more succinct definition of computer science is the study of automating algorithmic processes that scale. A computer scientist specializes in the theory of computation and the design of computational systems.[1]..

Now, that is much more betterer. It's a heck of a lot more meatier than " it's about computers."

IF that is the most succinct definition, that's where one should start when teaching or learning it, right? Sure, there's lots of other stuff, but all of that builds on that concept. If it doesn't, then it's "something else." That's true of every subject, each having their branches of specialization, some becoming fully independent subjects themselves as a result.

Well, to that degree, you would expect, then, the main purpose of getting into the field as a whole without specialization would then be getting yourself a functional level of knowledge of all the major layers, to the point you can continue into your own research. But, by that definition, comp sci becomes a 101, an entry point into a more specialized field.

But, the truth is, the definitions you find, vs the definitions in the wild, are different. When you sign up for a "comp sci" course, like I did in highschool, it basically translates to "learn the flavor of the day programming language." In my case, the flavor of the day was Java (yep, i have Computer Science credits, but never went to college, so they're worthless to me). And, by that definition, the old Comp. Sci. was C++, which i taught myself years before. And the difference between Java and C++ from a language point of view? Very, very little. In fact, the stuff that the book i was reading failed to teach me about C++ i ended up learning through the java course. I had a potential employer ask me to write him some code to show my worth, and i passed the interview doing C# code when I never coded in C# or took a course on it. How? I googled the API and looked at the compiler errors when it wouldn't compile. He was real anxious to hire me, but then i turned him down for a very special set of reasons (i met someone who knew the guy, and he was over ambitious, and he was likely to go under [to this day, i don't know what happened to his company, if it moved or if he gave up]). For perspective, C# is probably the Comp. Sci. flavor of the day right now, begging to be replaced with something new, maybe C++17.

What changes instruction in Computer Science? What is the active operator? What is considered "new knowledge?"

A person with an idea, a promise, and the belief that something they're doing is actually different.

Too general. A promise of innovation isn't innovation. A claim that a new ball will roll further isn't innovation unless it does. It won't create a paradigm shift if it doesn't do... what? What must it effect or affect in order to drive true change? There's a nugget deep in Computer Science that will respond to that thing. What's that nugget and what does it pay attention to?

Well, my answer was a little towards the sarcasm side. The reality of innovation right now, as it's focused on programming languages, is basically everyone patting each other on the back and calling new features a welcomed addition. Pretty much everyone's converting their language to the same thing so they get brownie points for adding features that people enjoy from some other programming language. From what I can tell, the end goal is "how do we make it easier for people to learn programming, and do so making fewer mistakes?" Which never accomplishes it's goal, because the task of nannying the program makes certain tasks difficult, which makes it harder for students to get into programming, because they can't do what they wanted to do that got them learning in the first place. Or the language ends up being slow on real machines when doing real programs. Or, perhaps, something else that makes the whole "innovation" less practical. Ultimately, the "newer, easier, and safer" programming languages end up being like giving someone a dull knife: they just try that much harder to do what they want to do and end up cutting themselves (giving up or doing something they weren't supposed to do).

And if you really want some comedy, go look up the "goto debate." It's one of those debates that it usually takes a beginner or someone who's not studied in the field to tell the nanny side that they're absolutely full of it. The jist of the arguments boil down to the first code somehow making more sense than the second code.

Code: Select all

while(true){
	command1
	command2
	command3
	command4
	command5
}

Code: Select all

the_beginning_of_the_end:
	command1
	command2
	command3
	command4
	command5
goto the_beginning_of_the_end

If the goal is to do something over and over and over again, which one seems more "readable?" Yep, welcome to the politics of Computer Science. If you think it's any more than preference, note that the debate revolves around the programming languages that have both options available to the programmer.

No, it's not easy, since the notion itself screams out that it's not easily predictable. But, like porn, any student of it should know it when they see it.

How about the emperor's new clothes? People are seeing it when it's not even there. I'm still trying to see how lambdas in C++ are innovative when java et al had them for a long time. Don't get me wrong, i appreciate the complication of the tool (I honestly do appreciate having the option that i probably won't use, simply because it's an option), but don't say it somehow makes thing easier or is somehow innovative.

Rerepresentation of math is more accurate, to the degree that it can have functional properties. ...

THIS IS GOLD. I'm purposefully ignore the part where you went deeper into explaining this sentence. No more explanation is needed nor should the focus be clouded with needless words. Unfortunately, I'm talking now, supplying them all for you.

Is math an "abstraction?" Point to ponder, perhaps. But, what you're really doing is manipulating an existing system, mathematics, to control another system, physics. Mathematics, through all the funky controls implemented, manipulates physical controls to yield a desired result. But, mathematics itself, if it isn't truly the "language of the Universe" isn't the system you're manipulating.

I'm glad i finally heard someone agree with me on the idea that mathematics is not the language of the universe (odds are, you haven't even heard of me making this argument, but it's a staple of mine where science and politics intermix, and it equally destroys both common atheist and common religious doctrines). The thing is, however, that if mathematics is what it is, we're essentially making a new branch, where this new branch is mixed with physics and common notation and interpretation to manipulate a small amount of matter in this universe. If you think about it, it's incredibly inefficient, but still way more efficient than anything we've had before. This idea that wire 1 having electricity running through it represents 1, wire 2 having electricity flowing through it represents 2, wire three's electricity representing 4, and so on, is merely a "standard" that we conform to. We don't even have a standard for what values are addition, subtraction, etc. Programming languages above assembly are basically meant to hide this basic fact.

You're re-representing the controls in mathematical terms. Why? Because, mathematics is an abstraction, representing the controls in place over a physical system. And, why math? Precision and rigor, no matter how it's defined. It's also much better than using Portuguese... Besides, things get difficult to really understand at their most basic level without maths. Maybe it is the language of the Universe, just not very well-liked by its inhabitants. I suppose some people like Portuguese, so let them be the "mathematicians."

The point is that the abstractions allow you to return to math, which is a common language that smart humans tend to speak more of than any other language. The messages don't need anything more than numbers and letters to represent numbers and sequences of numbers that you can't be bothered to remember. At the end of the day, it's still math, only we've manipulated the rules to sandbox it (or, rather, because without sandboxing we couldn't make a common interface with it).

Math is more of an art than a science, even though we use it in science. I see computers as no different, aside from the fact that we use science to make computers. And if you understand the connection between the three, you start to view modern scientific theories (especially quantum physics, computer modeled events, etc) in a very, very new light, and probably not a positive one when you also realize how wildly inaccurate it is. Add psychology to the mix and you'll be a skeptic of human "knowledge."

I'm a skeptic of what people call knowledge. I think "knowledge" is a misleading term. I also think that most people don't consider our reality very well or very deeply, but that's another subject.

"There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house." - Mother Goose

We seem to disagree on pretty much everything except this. So, I have a feeling that our disagreements revolve around a fundemental difference on how to handle this.

... As such, the more you know of a processor's assembly, the more you know about what you should and shouldn't do on it.

"Its assembly."

If it changes from time to time, something changes it and it's not fundamental. (Different architecture may require different instruction sets.) There are controls further below, operators that respond to the commands and "make do" stuff. Assembly, in this interpretation, is simply the most basic instruction set for those other things. And, it's the one that is open for manipulation to those uninitiated in the mysteries, since they'd set the house on fire if they were allowed to go any deeper...

The instruction set differences tend to vary wildly. While we do have some common elements like add, sub, etc, some of the even simpler operations like call, ret, mov may or may not exist in that form or in a completely different syntax. To the degree of there being any commonality in assembly, it boils down to 1 command per line. GNU Assembler Syntax for x86 even violates the standard "mneumonic destination, source" syntax. That said, there are fundementals to it, but everyone's got their own ideas. For every assembler, though, the basic syntax of the instructions can easily be learned in about 30 seconds. The instruction set learning curve depends on the CPU family, and the macro and conditional assembly depends on the assembler, but often follows a syntax that's relatively similar to another assembler's syntax, with some minor changes. Like the difference between C, C++, C#, Java, etc. You set them side by side and you might have trouble telling them all apart, but you usually can't just drop one in to replace the other, since they're different on "fundemental levels."

If you type out assembly code, you're not moving electrons. You're telling something else to move them. Something in a particular chip or on the board responds, shunting things around according to your command. The existence of 101101101 is not reflected in little ones and zeroes lining up, since ones and zeros don't do anything themselves. There's a fuzzy electron bouncing or reaching, depending on how you look at it, being influenced in its movement, however you look at that, to avoid burning the whole thing down while still making something happen in the "aggregate."

More than one, but pretty accurate, otherwise, and unnecessarily abstracted. It really is as simple as "We have a thing called a transister where wires A, B, and C exist. If electrons flow from C (ground) to A (voltage source), then electrons can also flow from C to B, else it don't happen. Accepting that electricity flows through the path of least resistance, you basically string a bunch of these ABC combinations together (2, actually) and you can get a simple "and" or "or" gate, which then you string a few of those together to get some advanced logic regarding the standard representation of one number to mix with another number according to the same standard, and get an output from the overall circuit in the form of another number to the same standard. Now, if the line representing 1 controls whether or not the lights have power, and if the line representing 2 controls whether or not the locks have power, and the line representing 4 represents whether or not the security system has power, you punch in 6 to go to bed, and 7 if you're going to the store. It's scarier than it is complicated, and when you face it, it really does end up being simple.

It's not inconceivable to teach from the atomic level. I've tried to do this a couple times, but your average Joe gets too bored. Which, i understand: arduino's are cool, but most people don't want to use them outside of picking up a "shield."

A blacksmith must have an understanding of metallurgy. That's the boring part to people that aren't blacksmiths. In a way, a blacksmith is a practical chemist. A "computer scientist" may need a deeper, more functional, understanding of physics of the quanta, but a programmer needs to have some portion of that understanding as well. A cert carrying Cisco Engineer, some Novel guy, someone humping footballs writing netcode? Not so much. It might help, though.

Certainly does. I guess your argument makes sense if you apply the pareto distribution, but employers are kind of sick of getting the 80% of applicants who understand 20% of the big picture. Sure, they can do scripts and such, which is the main task, but sometimes the task calls for a little above the bare minimum, and it also follows the pareto distribution, thus it's not every day, but it's far from rare, either, and it's causing problems.

On the subject of teaching and prediction of performance:

So, what works in other disciplines? That's the subject, right? "How do we make this betterer?"

History is a good subject to start with. It's all about "starts" anyway. Most teaching seems to include a lot of it in early classes. "The history of our subject, part one" is usually <insert class subject here> 101 level. Every textbook is full of "the history of the evolution of the making of the design of the study of the idea that is the result that we now call _____." Surely, that's important in some fundamental way besides an instructor bragging on how far we've come since the days when we actually had to chase our food.

I've had friends, mostly women, who decided to go into the profession of teaching. I can only assume, since I paid little attention, that such subjects start off with discussing Plato and a bunch of Greeks arguing with each other as students watched.

But, I also assume that they don't actually... do this. They don't move chairs around and then get students to stand up and start "teaching" in Teaching 101. If they don't do that, how can they be reasonably expected to understand how teaching has evolved and how it has improved? Or... has it?

If Computer Science is looking for a better way to teach and, perhaps, be able to predict a student's success given a set of teaching conditions, it may need to look to other professions, even ones some would consider to be unrelated. How do these professions achieve their goals with success? Copy that. Paste it. Save.

Well, there's places in programming where that works, and places where that doesn't work. Success in another profession usually means knowing the information your rival professional doesn't know. This isn't the attitude we have with technology. Instead, we've tried to measure performance by "lines of code," without comparing it to the complexity of the problem. With math, this is akin to saying the guy who can solve 100 addition and subtraction problems in 1 hour with blocks is better than the guy who can calculate the square root of 10 numbers to 20 decimal placements in his head in 1 hour. Now, you would imagine that they would abandon such a system when they know even if they did compensate for the difficulty of the task, they still couldn't compensate for other factors, such as bad management assigning the wrong tasks to the wrong people, and then not even letting people whose code depends on each other even communicate, that they would give up the idea. Nope, Microsoft committed to that idea, anyway. We have to hire a professional to evaluate the craftsmanship and stability of a house, and we've been living in houses for how long now? Now try evaluating someone's code.

But when it comes to the history point, that's where my idea of teaching from the electron comes in. Teach from that, skip the vacume tubes we don't need anymore, and land on the language of the day, and you have your history. Teach the stages to at least a level that people can see it functioning (get out a multimeter, grab a few transistors, grab a few quad-ops and LEDs, grab some switches, grab a basic addre, grab an arduino, and show the stuff working exactly how you describe it to). What's cool about this is that we don't have to rob a museum to get our ancient artifacts of the field, and the prices are reasonable. Heck, for less than the price of one student to have a text book, a class of 20 can have their own artifacts.

I think what it boils down to is, what this one comp sci guy said (i wish i could find the video), that people aren't tinkering anymore (and my arguments in this post boil down to the fact that we're straight up discouraging it), so people are having trouble understanding the lower levels that make up what they teach. My teacher in highschool clearly didn't even know what assembly looked like (i had it on my screen after "finishing the book"), when he was straight up teaching the entire class that it looked like hex-decimal. He wasn't too pleased when the programming language on my screen didn't look like hex-decimal and i called it assembly. Granted, i live in a rural area and it wasn't college, but the united states is mostly rural. This is what the college professors are picking up. And i've indirectly found out through some students that it's this bad in colleges, too. It's ugly.

This is the kicker with computers, and why it's especially difficult. We see it a little with arduino, but, in reality, we both make and use the tools. This topic is often hard to me in terms of game dev. I really want to make a game where it's moddable at the core. Thus, i'm a tool maker, not a tool using game maker.

I had a similar idea. I wanted a game that I couldn't predict and one that readily accepted complexities and responded to them. And, not just through some RNG, either. I wanted a game that built its own rules and changed them in response to "x" much like a person would, but still within certain limits. (Basically, "AI.")

A long time ago, in a basement far far away, I started coming up with a grand strategy modern warfare game. It was all just numbers with some primitive graphics, but I had loads and loads of data on units, strengths, weaknesses, terrain, etc. But, I sucked at programming, so it never got to the point where it would "do." I made a character generator and a sort of adventure maker for D&D, instead. That was easy. Thus ended my dream.

Which is a shame. Yet, we see these things are indeed happening, so they're ultimately possible, you just need to get back to the "do."

You'd be surprised how well a race-car driver knows about their automobile...

Well, kinda. I had a race-car driver that would constantly solicit me for sponsorship. We bought some tires for him and he plastered our name on the side of his car. Tiny letters. You get bigger letters if you pay more.

Race-car driver "professionals" are Professionals. They have an in-depth knowledge of their field including how to change blinker fluid and all the other stuffs they should know about their tools. They have a specialized knowledge and capability inside their field, though.

That's the thing, though, programmers should be that specialized, and often times they're far from it. Someone who drives truck should be specialized like that, too. Someone who goes to and from work should know how to fill the tank, check the oil, and other basics. If your profession uses a computer (which, in modern times usually does), you should be able to do at least basic scripting or something to build some degree of self-sufficience. I'm not asking for them to implement PGP encryption on data on the fly or something. I'm just asking they can "git commit." Yet, in this post, that seems to be too specialized for even degree seekers.

A point spawned from another post, can't remember who's or where: As a college student, I once got offered a job working on a classified military project, simply because I could "computer." WTF? My "do computer" was pretty much limited to "make this fookin' thing run game and make this other thing get pr0n from teh bbs." And, one of the leads on the project, who wasn't computer literate, was scrambling to get staffed. I told him I sucked. He didn't care. "We'll get you taught, just show up and you're golden." The project got buku funding and is all over the place, today, revealed in the open, mostly, and still managing to get bunches of dollars thrown at it. Eventually, it'll all hit "sci-fi-reality" in a few years. I keep kicking myself whenever I think about it. But, no regrets, really, as I have no desire to make more of an idiot of myself in public on that scale. I'll just stick it out here in OT and accomplish much of the same thing, with less volume.

That stuff scares me, too. The general idea is, don't go near anything that has been touched by a project with that level of stability, otherwise you might not remember it.

"ability to learn" is an inherent capability of all living creatures, isnt it ?

"programming" is nothing more than a sequence of instructions, what varies is the "language" in which these instructions are written ... i'm sure that every monkey can learn "program" a machine to give them a banana if you teach them the language ... there's no magic behind it

You'd think so, right? We do call some people "code monkeys" for a reason, but they seem to be hard to find, according to businesses. Personally, i just think businesses are looking in the wrong place, and people desiring to learn for real are also putting their trust in the wrong place. I'm sure there's some good education out there, somewhere, through the traditional methods of college, but it's not working, and it's not specific to programming. I think saturation is a big contributor to the problem. And thanks to all the talk about top paying jobs, i imagine people in law and med school have similar proble--oh wait, i just remembered that my girlfriend's menstrual cycle (affected by the endocrine system) had no connection to her thyroid (an organ in the endocrine system). She went to nursing school a month or two later, then apologized for making fun of me for calling BS. Within a week of starting classes, she was learning about the endocrine system and how finicky it is. It only took me 5 minutes and a guess to google and cross reference reputable articles, and general knowledge that the endocrine system is a bit touchy (thanks to all the meds people take, you can see imbalances in people all the time where one med leads to another med).

I tell people all the time that i'm not all that smart or knowledgeable on things, so me having a better track record than a professional medical practitioner in this area isn't me praising myself. It's me insulting the doctors. I could go on, but that was the most recent story.

[Morkonan]

"ability to learn" is an inherent capability of all living creatures, isnt it ?

That's debatable, as I'm sure the teachers in the thread would tell you.

There's "learning" and "conditioning." They're different and it's almost impossible to say, with some creatures, if they have "learned" something or have just developed a conditioned response.

A plant experiment has several plants in pots and obstacles to their growth have been placed above them. They grow around the obstacles to maximize their exposure to light. Did they "learn" that? No. That's not even conditioning, it's an evolutionarily reinforced adaption, a pre-written script.

A planarian, one of the simplest "animals" there is and a popular addition to all grade-school biology classrooms, is put in a petri dish. Food is added to a part of the dish and a light is turned on. This is done until the tiny worm responds to the light by moving to the part of the dish where the food is being put, even if there is no food there. Did it "learn" that the presence of light meant "food?" No. Yes. Maybe.

You might like this: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/arti ... bee-soccer

(They used a fake bee to teach real bees novel behavior.)

Is "learning" just a form of operant conditioning? Maybe in some ways, it is. It is certainly an outstanding survival mechanism, but then that implies intelligence. If it kills you, there's no way for the mechanism to be brought to bear, so learning only works for certain things. It takes a much higher order of intelligence to "learn" about things that could kill you and avoid them. Or, you just have to be lucky with genes that gives you traits which avoids the whole messiness of having to develop intelligence. (Faster, stronger, camouflage, etc.)

"programming" is nothing more than a sequence of instructions, what varies is the "language" in which these instructions are written ... i'm sure that every monkey can learn "program" a machine to give them a banana if you teach them the language ... there's no magic behind it

They can be conditioned to respond. They can even make some limited reasoning. Sometimes, they can be surprising and actually innovate. They could even solve novel problems they hadn't yet been exposed to. But, it's not likely they could understand what it is they were doing and that's something necessary for a true programmer, right?

[kohlrak]

"ability to learn" is an inherent capability of all living creatures, isnt it ?

That's debatable, as I'm sure the teachers in the thread would tell you.

There's "learning" and "conditioning." They're different and it's almost impossible to say, with some creatures, if they have "learned" something or have just developed a conditioned response.

A plant experiment has several plants in pots and obstacles to their growth have been placed above them. They grow around the obstacles to maximize their exposure to light. Did they "learn" that? No. That's not even conditioning, it's an evolutionarily reinforced adaption, a pre-written script.

A planarian, one of the simplest "animals" there is and a popular addition to all grade-school biology classrooms, is put in a petri dish. Food is added to a part of the dish and a light is turned on. This is done until the tiny worm responds to the light by moving to the part of the dish where the food is being put, even if there is no food there. Did it "learn" that the presence of light meant "food?" No. Yes. Maybe.

You might like this: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/arti ... bee-soccer

(They used a fake bee to teach real bees novel behavior.)

Is "learning" just a form of operant conditioning? Maybe in some ways, it is. It is certainly an outstanding survival mechanism, but then that implies intelligence. If it kills you, there's no way for the mechanism to be brought to bear, so learning only works for certain things. It takes a much higher order of intelligence to "learn" about things that could kill you and avoid them. Or, you just have to be lucky with genes that gives you traits which avoids the whole messiness of having to develop intelligence. (Faster, stronger, camouflage, etc.)

"programming" is nothing more than a sequence of instructions, what varies is the "language" in which these instructions are written ... i'm sure that every monkey can learn "program" a machine to give them a banana if you teach them the language ... there's no magic behind it

They can be conditioned to respond. They can even make some limited reasoning. Sometimes, they can be surprising and actually innovate. They could even solve novel problems they hadn't yet been exposed to. But, it's not likely they could understand what it is they were doing and that's something necessary for a true programmer, right?

Actually, one could question whether or not we actually understand mortality. We certainly fear it, and fear is usually of that which is unknown to us. Some people don't fear it, so it's not like we actually have a survival instinct. Workplace accidents also seem to fly in the face of this. If I said i got kicked in the jewels, you will wince, indicating that you feel the pain in your head. Thus, you can experience something without taking the actual damage. This allows us to condition humans for responses without actually doing things to them.

[mrbadger]

Conditioning and humans is a non trivial subject.
Take fear for instance...

Humans come equipped with all kinds of fears that we have no use for, and we don't know why, or have no definite idea why, but we can't get rid of them.

Why are we so afraid of sharks? Dunno, but there is a definite fear response to them built into humans. Same for a number of aquatic creatures.

Same for Lions and such. 99.999% or so of our species has never seen one in a situation where they would be a threat, but we have a strong fear response to them.

Well maybe that one we do understand. But then why do we like cats so much?
If you ascribe to the Aquatic Ape theory then the Shark thing makes more sense, they were a threat for long enough for us to develop an instinctual fear response. But not otherwise.


Personally I do. But it's taking a while to get traction. That dumb zero evidence Savanna model still gets trotted out because some men in very fine hats thought it up.

[brucewarren]

I think I have an idea as to why we like cats.

There's an account in the Bible of the Pharaoh of Egypt having a dream about cows. Joseph was supposed to have explained what the dream meant. The upshot of the tale is that Pharaoh took to storing 7 years worth of food in great big warehouses to tide everyone over the bad years.

Ancient Egypt was famous for being very fond of cats. Mice eat eat grain and other stored food. Cats keep the mice down. Coincidence?

[mrbadger]

We do like useful things.

But I’m an Athiest, so I don’t beleive in mice.

Or something like that.

One of our cats kept batting me on the face last night to wake me up so I’d let him out. So right now I’m not so desperately fond of cats....

[Observe]

Is "learning" just a form of operant conditioning?

Learning is sometimes a very mechanical process of 'conditioning' gained by knowledge, by experience. This is an additive filling of the reservoir of memory. Mechanistic learning often has a specific purpose in mind (to pass an exam for example), and it stops as soon as we say "I know". There is another kind of learning that never stops, because ultimately, knowledge is always partial.

[JSDD]

not everyone likes cats. not everyone likes dogs, maybe because once you've been threatened by a strong / aggressive dog. not everyone likes snakes, but i do, i found them fascinating, learned about them, held 1 little 1.2 meter snake as a pet. but when it comes to spiders, then i'm as fearful as a little child ...

regarding the non-sense "fear about lions" .. i'm sure that an uneducated, nature-loving child loves cats as well as lions, up to the point that child actually sees what a lion actually is ... how big it is, what it eats for dinner, and so on ... you dont have to be bitten by a lion to fear it, but you have to have a little bit of knowledge about the lion to be able to "reasonably" fear it ...

some people fear things they dont know, others dont fear them, scientists for example work every day on issues they dont fully understand ...

[kohlrak]

Conditioning and humans is a non trivial subject.
Take fear for instance...

Humans come equipped with all kinds of fears that we have no use for, and we don't know why, or have no definite idea why, but we can't get rid of them.

Why are we so afraid of sharks? Dunno, but there is a definite fear response to them built into humans. Same for a number of aquatic creatures.

Same for Lions and such. 99.999% or so of our species has never seen one in a situation where they would be a threat, but we have a strong fear response to them.

Well maybe that one we do understand. But then why do we like cats so much?
If you ascribe to the Aquatic Ape theory then the Shark thing makes more sense, they were a threat for long enough for us to develop an instinctual fear response. But not otherwise.


Personally I do. But it's taking a while to get traction. That dumb zero evidence Savanna model still gets trotted out because some men in very fine hats thought it up.

What about fear being a matter of "this is of chaos?" Are you familiar with this idea of human beings constantly being torn between chaos and order? Things we are fairly familiar with, we're OK with. Things we're not overly familiar with, we're not OK with (some poeple like spiders, some people don't). I noticed people tend to be afraid of acquatic things. If you're partially familiar with it, but not overly, it becomes a fun thing, like a cat. Anything that attacks us looses it's order category and becomes chaos. For example, if ghosts can't hurt us, why do we fear them? Same with ETs. We have little to no evidence either exists, yet the absolutely freak us out.

I think I have an idea as to why we like cats.

There's an account in the Bible of the Pharaoh of Egypt having a dream about cows. Joseph was supposed to have explained what the dream meant. The upshot of the tale is that Pharaoh took to storing 7 years worth of food in great big warehouses to tide everyone over the bad years.

Ancient Egypt was famous for being very fond of cats. Mice eat eat grain and other stored food. Cats keep the mice down. Coincidence?

It explains why we tame cats. But you got people who find big cats adorable in videos, but not in person. Why? you know it won't hurt you, because it's not really there.

We do like useful things.

But I’m an Athiest, so I don’t beleive in mice.

Or something like that.

One of our cats kept batting me on the face last night to wake me up so I’d let him out. So right now I’m not so desperately fond of cats....

But you're not afraid.

Is "learning" just a form of operant conditioning?

Learning is sometimes a very mechanical process of 'conditioning' gained by knowledge, by experience. This is an additive filling of the reservoir of memory. Mechanistic learning often has a specific purpose in mind (to pass an exam for example), and it stops as soon as we say "I know". There is another kind of learning that never stops, because ultimately, knowledge is always partial.

Is there any evidence to suggest that we have different forms of learning that can be categorized as such?

not everyone likes cats. not everyone likes dogs, maybe because once you've been threatened by a strong / aggressive dog. not everyone likes snakes, but i do, i found them fascinating, learned about them, held 1 little 1.2 meter snake as a pet. but when it comes to spiders, then i'm as fearful as a little child ...

regarding the non-sense "fear about lions" .. i'm sure that an uneducated, nature-loving child loves cats as well as lions, up to the point that child actually sees what a lion actually is ... how big it is, what it eats for dinner, and so on ... you dont have to be bitten by a lion to fear it, but you have to have a little bit of knowledge about the lion to be able to "reasonably" fear it ...

some people fear things they dont know, others dont fear them, scientists for example work every day on issues they dont fully understand ...

But, child not afraid of mommy or daddy who's big. Children seem universally wary of strangers, shy of an offering (which allows the child to believe s/he knows what the stranger's predictability, bringing the stranger into the ordered category).

[mrbadger]

All this talk of teaching programming to beginners, and guess what I've just been told.

After five years, when I stopped post brain injury due to not being able to deal with the large class sizes, I'm finally back teaching introductory programming!

Not lectures. That would be too much, too many people, but workshops.

I'm quite excited. I'm not in charge, so there's no pressure, I'll just be teaching. I don't want to run any first year modules any more anyway. I prefer final year students.

[kohlrak]

All this talk of teaching programming to beginners, and guess what I've just been told.

After five years, when I stopped post brain injury due to not being able to deal with the large class sizes, I'm finally back teaching introductory programming!

Not lectures. That would be too much, too many people, but workshops.

I'm quite excited. I'm not in charge, so there's no pressure, I'll just be teaching. I don't want to run any first year modules any more anyway. I prefer final year students.

That's awesome. Hopefully this conversation will also be useful towards that.

[Morkonan]

Actually, one could question whether or not we actually understand mortality. We certainly fear it, and fear is usually of that which is unknown to us. Some people don't fear it, so it's not like we actually have a survival instinct. Workplace accidents also seem to fly in the face of this. If I said i got kicked in the jewels, you will wince, indicating that you feel the pain in your head. Thus, you can experience something without taking the actual damage. This allows us to condition humans for responses without actually doing things to them.

We have the ability to construct scenarios in our heads and then work through them, coming to solutions without actually having to put ourselves in danger.

We certainly have a survival instinct. A drowning man can drown his rescuer in his desperation to "survive." A dying person gasps for days, their body virtually eating itself in order to stay alive. Are they "fearing death" or is their primitive rat brain just reacting the way it's supposed to?

Many prey animals have a "freeze" mechanism. You've heard of "Fight or Flee", right? Well, it's more properly - Fight, Flee, or Freeze. Ever seen a gazelle lying on the ground placidly letting a lion eat its guts while it's obviously still alive, still capable of running away, its eyes blinking, nose quivering? There ya go. What good is this mechanism? It's the last-ditch effort to take advantage of a predator's possible inclination to let go of seemingly "helpless or dead" prey. At least, that's the more popular view. Some would say that this is "shock." Certainly, there is some of that, but that's not what this actually is. A gazelle in such a situation is fully capable of voluntary movement and escaping, even if it later dies of its wounds. It's much more than a shock response.

It's this "freeze" response to an overwhelming situation that military training seeks to prevent. We are just as hardwired, in some situations, as any animal. We're just a bit more capable at training ourselves to not react instinctively. And... this is why bungee-jumping, tourists on a "shark experience" swim and "let's go on a wildlife safari in Africa with our windows down" exists... Unfortunately, we're capable of over-riding our evolutionary reinforced, and sensible, responses.

...We seem to disagree on pretty much everything except this. So, I have a feeling that our disagreements revolve around a fundemental difference on how to handle this...

I wanted to return to this comment to point out that we really don't disagree on a lot of things. It's also not that we disagree on something fundamental, either, when we do.

We're talking different languages and coming at this issue from different perspectives.

A test that is only designed to "screen" or is supposed to have some sort of predictive value doesn't always measure what it was intended to measure. All too often, these tests are designed as very easy tools to use to accomplish a very general goal, not very effective tools to use to accomplish a very specific goal.

So, a student who does well on this test might show promise as a programmer, right? Does that mean that students who do poorly can not be very effective programmers? Not just "no" but "heck no."

And, besides, that's not really the goal of modern education in the West, is it? We don't gather up students in a room and then select them for careers based on some sort of testing. We tell students "If you apply yourselves, you can be whatever you want to be", right? Then, we're supposed to design courses that "create" those people from the raw materials the teachers have...

That's really the goal, here. We can use screening ans assessment tests to get some idea of the general capabilities of an individual student. But, we can't base availability of instruction on general assessment tools, making choices concerning a privileged few who, perhaps, may have inherent advantages indicated by the test.

Our goal has many more constraints including our "cultures" which, mostly in the West, demand that we provide programs of instruction that enable and empower individuals to pursue their desired paths. We don't have to hand out degrees like a Pez dispenser, but we do have to make such degrees accessible if a student... applies themselves.

To sum: We believe that if a student isn't successful, it should not be the fault of the program of instruction nor should it be due to bias by the institution.

IOW - This test, while potentially useful, can't be used as a basis for an entire program of instruction. It can help to supplement it, but we still have to create a program that someone who failed this test can access in order to "learn computer."

[kohlrak]

Actually, one could question whether or not we actually understand mortality. We certainly fear it, and fear is usually of that which is unknown to us. Some people don't fear it, so it's not like we actually have a survival instinct. Workplace accidents also seem to fly in the face of this. If I said i got kicked in the jewels, you will wince, indicating that you feel the pain in your head. Thus, you can experience something without taking the actual damage. This allows us to condition humans for responses without actually doing things to them.

We have the ability to construct scenarios in our heads and then work through them, coming to solutions without actually having to put ourselves in danger.

Correct. Do we fear this, though? I believe this "empathy" is what separates us. Animals react when they see us suffer or are in pain, but are they empathic like we are?

We certainly have a survival instinct. A drowning man can drown his rescuer in his desperation to "survive." A dying person gasps for days, their body virtually eating itself in order to stay alive. Are they "fearing death" or is their primitive rat brain just reacting the way it's supposed to?

If you take their word for it: rat brain. That said, i'm not even going to begin to suggest a moral or ethical policy based on this. There are just some choices that should always be left to the person who must suffer the consequences of those choices. Discuss them, yes, but not to make them for them.

Many prey animals have a "freeze" mechanism. You've heard of "Fight or Flee", right? Well, it's more properly - Fight, Flee, or Freeze. Ever seen a gazelle lying on the ground placidly letting a lion eat its guts while it's obviously still alive, still capable of running away, its eyes blinking, nose quivering? There ya go. What good is this mechanism? It's the last-ditch effort to take advantage of a predator's possible inclination to let go of seemingly "helpless or dead" prey. At least, that's the more popular view. Some would say that this is "shock." Certainly, there is some of that, but that's not what this actually is. A gazelle in such a situation is fully capable of voluntary movement and escaping, even if it later dies of its wounds. It's much more than a shock response.

Honestly, I just think the Gazelle understands it's totally screwed (and it doesn't have to know this too consciously) and is more worried about any attempt of moving making the existing and inevitable pain even worse (next it gets clawed in the face or something and the lion gets rougher with it to keep it where it belongs). We see this alot with, say, boxing. What do new people do when they get flogged? Some see it coming and run like hell, some people just try to brawl back (seem to be the most successful ones), and then you got the people who turn their backs. Does anyone know why you turn your back, when it isn't even remotely helpful? If you know you're going to get hit, the back has more bone to it, thus it hurts alot less. You're protecting your vitals while taking shots. Not good for your kidneys, though.

It's this "freeze" response to an overwhelming situation that military training seeks to prevent.

Alot more than just that, I assure you. But, you hit the nail on the head: it comes from being overwhelmed. If running doesn't work, freeze is the next thing. People rarely fight, from what i've seen.

We are just as hardwired, in some situations, as any animal. We're just a bit more capable at training ourselves to not react instinctively. And... this is why bungee-jumping, tourists on a "shark experience" swim and "let's go on a wildlife safari in Africa with our windows down" exists... Unfortunately, we're capable of over-riding our evolutionary reinforced, and sensible, responses.

I think it's deeper than that. Ever try training this reaction out of yourself? It's a default reaction for a reason: it's better to do nothing than to do something that's wrong and makes the situation worse. The people who like danger haven't really gotten bitten by danger. It's kind of like smoking. "It wasn't what killed my Grandma." If someone punches you 10 times and only the last time hurt, you'll never respect them, even though that one time hurt. Therefore, when boxing, take advantage of you jabs as a feeler punch to know where you're at. Then let them eat the cross and follow that up with another hard shot, as they'll walk right into it.

...We seem to disagree on pretty much everything except this. So, I have a feeling that our disagreements revolve around a fundemental difference on how to handle this...

I wanted to return to this comment to point out that we really don't disagree on a lot of things. It's also not that we disagree on something fundamental, either, when we do.

We're talking different languages and coming at this issue from different perspectives.

Perspectives usually come from fundementals. I'm referring to other topics altogether, not necessarily this one. For example, the Trump topic.

A test that is only designed to "screen" or is supposed to have some sort of predictive value doesn't always measure what it was intended to measure. All too often, these tests are designed as very easy tools to use to accomplish a very general goal, not very effective tools to use to accomplish a very specific goal.

This is actually precisely why I wanted to discuss this topic. Notice IQ tests are predictive of futures, and even ability to get hired as a programmer, yet IQ is not reliable to predict one's likelihood of learning? IQ correlates with race, so the race and IQ debate happens, right? We forget that correlation does not imply causation. There could easily be anothe correlating factor that becomes the cause. What i find interesting, though, is the people who get most offended by the correlation are the same people that want everything aside from moral or mental potential to be related to genetics.

Personally, I think correlation does not imply causation. For example, the "twin studies," do they compensate for automatic culture reassignment based on race? In other words, could IQ be related to culture, as oppossed to race, and the kids that were adopted at a young age merely adopt the culture attributed to their race simply because that was what society expects of them, which leads to the lower IQ (and consequent behavioral issues)?

Furthermore, if it is culture, rather than race, does that not mean that anyone could ultimately learn anything with the proper instruction methods as well as instructee's approach? This circles back to programming, and from what I can tell, absolutely. When I see people having trouble, I ask them what is on their mind and why they did something. Sometimes, I find i have to ask them to go over the whole program, because if I ask about something specific they'll just straight up assume that's the error (which it could be) and then delete it or what not, and you never figure out what the real problem was (that created the bad code). It's really interesting to see what mistakes people make and for what reasons. Sometimes you can fix one mistake, and that'll fix all their other practices. A few common patterns i find:

• ・Hiding "difficult" topics leads to accidental discovery of those topics, without awareness that the topics exist. This leads to alot of bugs.
  
  ・"Just doing what i'm told," or trying different things instead of thinking through the problem, because everything's magical and once it works it works just fine, right? if it works now, there must not be a bug? Doesn't matter if it also includes an extra 10 to 20 lines of code and variable declarations that ultimately don't accomplish anything other than slowing down the code.
  
  ・Not checking return codes (boy, was I ever guilty of this one back in the day), because some functions are very reliable in your test environment, even though they're likely to break in the real world (not checking for null with fopen is a favorite of mine).
  
  ・"I should be able to use a cellphone function for every phone object, since I can use a phone function on every cellphone object." This is more of a thing where APIs and Libraries aren't documented nearly well enough, which is especially bad in a learning environment.
  
  ・"This is too hard." Usually someone who is approaching the problem with a certain expectation that isn't true. Need to find out what the assumptions are, and show them why certain assumptions are incorrect. Usually the result of trying to teach something as a rule, when it's a rule of thumb.
  
  ・"That's bad practice." Rule of thumb gone wild (goto debate strikes again). And/or, lack of instruction in alternative methods (either the one that they are calling bad practice, or the one that they could use instead of what they're calling bad practice).

Just a few off the top of my head, which is only because those are the ones I see in almost everyone.

So, a student who does well on this test might show promise as a programmer, right? Does that mean that students who do poorly can not be very effective programmers? Not just "no" but "heck no."

As I've managed to break the test (which i stated in the first post), I agree. What is really interesting, is that i solved the issue by using "the hardest programming language:" assembly. I argue that a good part of what makes this stuff challenging is that we try too hard to "make things easier." Sometimes, in doing so, we actually make them harder. Ever try learning a language and starting with one of those old style language learning kits? Still found the most useful method is immersion, which we've known for so many years, yet we insist on trying to "make it easier" on people by doing catered language lessons. Sure, C++ is easier to code in than assembly, but not for beginners. The advantage of C++ and such comes from being able to short hand alot of instructions onto one line with a simple math expression:

Code: Select all

seed dd 0xDEADDEAD
prng:
	mov eax, [seed]
	shr eax, 3
	xor eax, [seed]
	rol eax, 5
	mov [seed], eax
	ret

to

Code: Select all

unsigned int rol(unsigned int val, int rotval) {
    return (val << rotval) | (val >> sizeof(unsigned int) - rotval));
}

unsigned int seed = 0xDEADDEAD;

unsigned int prng(){
	seed = ROL(((seed >> 3) ^ seed), 5);
	return seed;
}

Here you can see the advantages and disadvantages: Sometimes the processor implements something fun and useful, but you just can't use it without intrinsics, reinventing it (what you see above), inline assembly, or mixing source languages (which is way easier than you'd think). Also, "shl" is way easier to google than "<<" if you happen to forget what it is.

And, besides, that's not really the goal of modern education in the West, is it? We don't gather up students in a room and then select them for careers based on some sort of testing. We tell students "If you apply yourselves, you can be whatever you want to be", right? Then, we're supposed to design courses that "create" those people from the raw materials the teachers have...

Well, that's the thing: the rubber's hitting the road. It really has gotten to the point where we have to ask ourselves whether or not we honestly believe that. I'm sorry to say, that it is looking alot like we don't. I'd love to change that. However, the perceptive cause is a political nightmare, so alot of people are trying to tiptoe around it, because to find the actual cause, you'd have to address the perceived cause, which no one can do. Before we can say it's approach, etc, we need to first actually do the study involving race. I think we all know what the results would say, so we'd like to avoid that controversy. Now, i say the "outliers" in the results would hold the key to what it really is, but before you can "analyze the exceptions," we'd need to make the general rule.

Given that we don't like to look at exceptions, I can understand why we avoid the general rule experiments: Why do we say "I have 2 boxes," but cannot say "I have 2 water?" Mass nouns vs non-mass nouns are hard in english, so we avoid the topic of why a noun is or isn't fundementally one or the other, then when a mass noun shows up as a non-mass noun ("there were 2 gasses coming out of the sewer, a harmless gas, and chlorine gas"), people who don't speak english natively end up horribly confused. This fear of going down the rabbit hole to explain exceptions is something we need to address as a culture, because it's slowly eroding the various academic communities, including the scientific communities. However, not only is it inconvenient to do so, certain political groups love to hide in these really conveniant spaces for exceptions.

If Chinese people are short, Yao Ming either has some non-chinese blood, a rare mutation occured (where alot of genes mutated just the right way at the same time [realistically, "no"]), or it's not DNA. Do I have the answer? Nope, but I think it's worth looking at. I think one can be close to a solution, but while "close enough" works in some situations, i think we have enough margins of error in enough things that it's catching up to us, especially when it's erupting into violence. For horseshoes is close enough. For hand grenades it's close enough. For thigs that determine peoples' ability to succeed in life and reproduce, I don't think so.

That's really the goal, here. We can use screening ans assessment tests to get some idea of the general capabilities of an individual student. But, we can't base availability of instruction on general assessment tools, making choices concerning a privileged few who, perhaps, may have inherent advantages indicated by the test.

I think we could pull off a certain test that would be way more deserving. Perhaps a sort of "morality test" that could be done in a very, very objective way, politics removed (which is probably why it'll never happen). However, to get there, we have to face the demons that we have been avoiding. To take race again, since it's such a big deal, I have a great story for you (that happened, no joke): When I was working in the kitchen of a nursing home, one lady from another department came up to me and said that someone told her to tell me something. I said that without knowing who it was, the information wasn't really all that relevant. She couldn't remember the woman's name, but she's a woman and works in the kitchen. I pointed out that out of the 20 or more people that work in the kitchen, only about 5 or 6 are male, thus that wasn't very helpful. I gave up, and later the woman in question found me. This woman happened to be the only black woman working at the facility at that time. So, fine, you couldn't remember a name like "Sharona," but she couldn't remember she was black? I confronted the original woman who was to pass Sharona's message to me, and Sharona was right there to hear this one, and she said "I was afraid of being offensive." So, in the west, we believe that skin color holds no more value than hair or eye color, yet we have trouble referring to skin color but not to hair or eye color? People are a little frisky about "fat" and "skinny," since those revolve around lifestyle choices (things that you actually could judge someone on, with moral standing) which I get, but how are we to ever get passed this issue if we're afraid of it? How are we ever going to get past race issues when we have admission and employment quotas? How about those race rights groups? How can we ever get past this stuff if we cannot face it and put it to rest?

But, that's another topic, and i'm probably already pushing the rules with what i've said here, so I doubt we'll be able to discuss this furthere, here. However, it needs to be brought up. Once you get past race, the next thing will probably be mental disorders and such (for example, I have ADHD). I would argue these are a much, much bigger factor, but i've also noticed that since this is also sensitive, alot of people have gotten away with making some nasty claims. For example, one study says people with autism spectrum disorders such as ADHD have a tendancy to have higher IQ than those who do not (I think they might actually have something, here, given the symptoms, i'm willing to bet that they're the result of high IQ rather than some other condition). Another study came out, to counter it, that suggested that children with ADHD have smaller brains on average. The injustice being that there are three potential reasons for this that were not addressed, and because it's an unpopular topic, the favored report can be used to oppress those like me with diagnosed ADHD:

• 1. Things in biology that grow slowly end up with higher complexity on average before it stops growing. Take male muscles vs female muscles: girls often outperform boys. 10 years later, and men are outperforming women at the same tasks. Basic biology.
  
  2. At the time of study, ADHD was treated with Ritalin, which has a side effect of stunted brain growth. In the counter study suggesting ADHD diagnosed children have smaller brains, did they account for medication?
  
  3. Does brain size ultimately affect intelligence? A famous case (yet we have little detail on) suggests a man with so little brain tissue that doctors ponder how he is even alive, has an IQ of 60, which is low, but people with over 10 times the brain mass often don't have an IQ of more than 110. That's quite the diminishing returns, right? Must be tiered, because with those diminishing returns, you'd expect to be able to visually identify einstein's cranial differences from "normal people" at least a kilometer away. I'm willing to bet IQ is not tied to brain mass.

And what even is IQ? All we know is low IQ correlates with violence and lack of success in life, while high IQ correlates with being rich. How do we know it's not trainable when we don't even know what it even is outside of that? Clearly, from the test above, we know that IQ isn't even predictive of programmer capabilities.

Our goal has many more constraints including our "cultures" which, mostly in the West, demand that we provide programs of instruction that enable and empower individuals to pursue their desired paths. We don't have to hand out degrees like a Pez dispenser, but we do have to make such degrees accessible if a student... applies themselves.

Yeah, but we need to get away from the quota system. We need a system to measure application, willingness to learn, and so forth. But we won't even get there if we don't first tackle the issues we're afraid of. Otherwise, any complex test we come up with will become cost-effectively "practical" (simplified) into a system we got rid of a long time ago, because we knew it was a bad idea. The problem is, we know something is morally wrong and impractical, but we never bothered figuring out why, or how we managed to end up with the practical idea. We were just kinda like "woah, this isn't working," and then reversed it. Did things improve? To some degree, yes, but we addressed the symptoms rather than the problem, which is why we're falling right back into the trap that we escaped from.

To sum: We believe that if a student isn't successful, it should not be the fault of the program of instruction nor should it be due to bias by the institution.

IOW - This test, while potentially useful, can't be used as a basis for an entire program of instruction. It can help to supplement it, but we still have to create a program that someone who failed this test can access in order to "learn computer."

There's the thing: both statements are mutually exclusive. If the test is incorrect in predicting programmer capability, despite it completely correlating with student success rates, it's an indication that the intruction is not addressing the problem, and that the current solution to the problem is that the students know what they're doing before getting told what they're doing. That's basically what the test indicates: that the majority of students who don't already know their stuff aren't learning. Either some people can't learn and the people who can already know the basics before instruction, or something in the curriculum needs changed to address the students who don't already know what's being taught to them. In other words, people are going to get a degree, not to learn, or if they are there to learn, they're still not learning. It's cruel to say, but there's little other explanation for what we're seeing.

[pjknibbs]

I'm beginning to think Morkonan and kohlrak are in a race to create the biggest walls of text...

[kohlrak]

I'm beginning to think Morkonan and kohlrak are in a race to create the biggest walls of text...

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Suspendisse in est ante in nibh. Erat velit scelerisque in dictum. Pellentesque adipiscing commodo elit at imperdiet dui accumsan sit amet. Facilisis mauris sit amet massa vitae. Mauris commodo quis imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien. Scelerisque in dictum non consectetur. Purus in mollis nunc sed id semper. Viverra mauris in aliquam sem fringilla ut morbi. Egestas sed sed risus pretium quam. Enim nunc faucibus a pellentesque sit amet porttitor. Amet facilisis magna etiam tempor. Viverra tellus in hac habitasse platea dictumst. Vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi lacus sed. Euismod nisi porta lorem mollis aliquam ut porttitor. Et egestas quis ipsum suspendisse. Tortor posuere ac ut consequat.

Aenean euismod elementum nisi quis eleifend quam adipiscing. Dignissim cras tincidunt lobortis feugiat vivamus at augue eget arcu. At in tellus integer feugiat scelerisque varius morbi enim nunc. Porttitor eget dolor morbi non arcu risus quis. Eu scelerisque felis imperdiet proin. Cursus metus aliquam eleifend mi. Nunc non blandit massa enim nec dui. Urna duis convallis convallis tellus id interdum velit laoreet id. Platea dictumst vestibulum rhoncus est pellentesque elit. Justo eget magna fermentum iaculis eu non diam phasellus. Eu nisl nunc mi ipsum. Vulputate odio ut enim blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit aliquam. Faucibus pulvinar elementum integer enim neque. Viverra accumsan in nisl nisi scelerisque eu ultrices vitae auctor. Nulla malesuada pellentesque elit eget gravida cum. Purus gravida quis blandit turpis cursus in hac habitasse. Lobortis elementum nibh tellus molestie nunc. Sit amet justo donec enim diam vulputate. Interdum varius sit amet mattis vulputate.

Amet cursus sit amet dictum sit amet justo donec enim. Augue ut lectus arcu bibendum at varius vel pharetra vel. Tortor pretium viverra suspendisse potenti nullam ac. Viverra mauris in aliquam sem fringilla. Euismod lacinia at quis risus sed vulputate odio. Tincidunt augue interdum velit euismod in pellentesque massa placerat. Arcu cursus euismod quis viverra nibh. Ullamcorper malesuada proin libero nunc consequat interdum varius sit. Dictum varius duis at consectetur lorem donec massa sapien. Eget gravida cum sociis natoque. Ut sem viverra aliquet eget sit amet tellus cras adipiscing. Sodales neque sodales ut etiam sit. Egestas sed tempus urna et pharetra pharetra massa massa ultricies. Posuere ac ut consequat semper viverra nam libero justo. Quis ipsum suspendisse ultrices gravida. Praesent semper feugiat nibh sed pulvinar proin gravida hendrerit.

Ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum sed arcu non. Diam ut venenatis tellus in metus. Cursus metus aliquam eleifend mi in nulla posuere sollicitudin. Vitae justo eget magna fermentum iaculis eu non. Tincidunt eget nullam non nisi est sit amet. Eget egestas purus viverra accumsan in. Tortor consequat id porta nibh venenatis. Pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem et tortor consequat id. Vivamus arcu felis bibendum ut tristique et egestas. Faucibus et molestie ac feugiat sed lectus. Quis enim lobortis scelerisque fermentum dui. Condimentum mattis pellentesque id nibh. Turpis massa tincidunt dui ut ornare lectus. Mauris augue neque gravida in fermentum et sollicitudin. Morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis.

Vestibulum morbi blandit cursus risus. Viverra mauris in aliquam sem. Ut eu sem integer vitae justo eget magna. In mollis nunc sed id semper risus. Justo eget magna fermentum iaculis eu non diam phasellus vestibulum. Elementum nisi quis eleifend quam adipiscing. Fames ac turpis egestas maecenas pharetra convallis. Risus feugiat in ante metus dictum at tempor commodo ullamcorper. Massa enim nec dui nunc mattis. Maecenas volutpat blandit aliquam etiam. Lectus magna fringilla urna porttitor. Egestas sed tempus urna et pharetra pharetra massa massa. Vitae congue eu consequat ac felis donec et. Porta lorem mollis aliquam ut. Adipiscing elit pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus. Vel eros donec ac odio tempor orci. Velit sed ullamcorper morbi tincidunt ornare. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis.

Nibh praesent tristique magna sit amet. Nascetur ridiculus mus mauris vitae. Pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem et tortor consequat. Nunc mattis enim ut tellus elementum sagittis. Molestie at elementum eu facilisis sed odio. Placerat in egestas erat imperdiet sed euismod nisi. Luctus accumsan tortor posuere ac ut. Amet dictum sit amet justo donec enim diam vulputate. Viverra justo nec ultrices dui sapien eget mi proin sed. Senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac. Hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque non tellus orci ac auctor augue. Scelerisque varius morbi enim nunc faucibus a pellentesque sit amet. Viverra tellus in hac habitasse. Vel facilisis volutpat est velit egestas dui id. Risus quis varius quam quisque id diam. Vulputate odio ut enim blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit. Aliquet bibendum enim facilisis gravida neque convallis. Turpis egestas maecenas pharetra convallis posuere.

Vulputate mi sit amet mauris. Metus aliquam eleifend mi in. Sagittis aliquam malesuada bibendum arcu vitae elementum curabitur vitae nunc. Laoreet id donec ultrices tincidunt arcu. Ut sem nulla pharetra diam sit. Ullamcorper velit sed ullamcorper morbi. Non quam lacus suspendisse faucibus interdum. Tincidunt praesent semper feugiat nibh sed pulvinar proin gravida. Et egestas quis ipsum suspendisse ultrices gravida dictum. Urna nec tincidunt praesent semper. Bibendum ut tristique et egestas quis ipsum suspendisse ultrices. Urna neque viverra justo nec. Accumsan lacus vel facilisis volutpat est velit egestas dui. Tempus iaculis urna id volutpat lacus laoreet.

Consequat id porta nibh venenatis. Elit duis tristique sollicitudin nibh. Facilisis leo vel fringilla est ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi. Leo in vitae turpis massa sed elementum tempus. Vel eros donec ac odio. Imperdiet nulla malesuada pellentesque elit eget gravida cum sociis natoque. Laoreet sit amet cursus sit amet dictum sit amet. Dignissim diam quis enim lobortis scelerisque fermentum dui faucibus in. Neque vitae tempus quam pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem et. Eget magna fermentum iaculis eu. Turpis cursus in hac habitasse platea dictumst quisque sagittis. Tristique et egestas quis ipsum suspendisse ultrices. Orci sagittis eu volutpat odio facilisis mauris sit amet. Id nibh tortor id aliquet lectus proin nibh nisl. Diam maecenas ultricies mi eget mauris pharetra et ultrices. Vel fringilla est ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi. Nisl purus in mollis nunc sed id semper. Vel pretium lectus quam id leo in. Non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum. Nulla facilisi cras fermentum odio eu feugiat.

Sollicitudin nibh sit amet commodo nulla. Blandit turpis cursus in hac. In mollis nunc sed id semper risus. Amet nisl purus in mollis nunc sed id. Ultricies mi eget mauris pharetra et ultrices. Scelerisque eu ultrices vitae auctor eu augue. Sagittis vitae et leo duis ut diam quam nulla porttitor. Egestas tellus rutrum tellus pellentesque eu tincidunt. Egestas congue quisque egestas diam in arcu. Et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod. Vitae congue eu consequat ac felis donec et odio pellentesque. Pretium aenean pharetra magna ac placerat vestibulum. Vitae et leo duis ut diam quam nulla porttitor. Nunc sed velit dignissim sodales. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Accumsan lacus vel facilisis volutpat est velit egestas dui. Tincidunt lobortis feugiat vivamus at augue eget arcu. Viverra accumsan in nisl nisi scelerisque eu.

Neque aliquam vestibulum morbi blandit cursus risus at. Dignissim sodales ut eu sem integer vitae justo. Scelerisque eleifend donec pretium vulputate sapien nec sagittis aliquam malesuada. Mattis pellentesque id nibh tortor id aliquet lectus proin. Dictum fusce ut placerat orci nulla pellentesque dignissim enim. Elementum curabitur vitae nunc sed velit. Semper eget duis at tellus at. Sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit duis. Porttitor lacus luctus accumsan tortor posuere ac ut. Eget gravida cum sociis natoque penatibus et. Sit amet justo donec enim diam vulputate ut. Imperdiet dui accumsan sit amet nulla facilisi morbi tempus. At auctor urna nunc id cursus metus aliquam eleifend mi. Neque vitae tempus quam pellentesque nec. Turpis massa tincidunt dui ut ornare lectus sit amet. Duis ultricies lacus sed turpis tincidunt.

Ut aliquam purus sit amet luctus. Diam sollicitudin tempor id eu nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus. Tempor nec feugiat nisl pretium. Pellentesque adipiscing commodo elit at imperdiet dui accumsan sit. Tellus in hac habitasse platea dictumst vestibulum. Eget gravida cum sociis natoque penatibus. Tellus orci ac auctor augue mauris. Diam sollicitudin tempor id eu nisl nunc mi ipsum. In hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque non tellus orci. Eget dolor morbi non arcu.

Nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna nec tincidunt. Tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula. Hac habitasse platea dictumst quisque sagittis purus sit. Ut sem viverra aliquet eget sit amet tellus cras adipiscing. Erat velit scelerisque in dictum non consectetur a erat nam. Non quam lacus suspendisse faucibus interdum posuere lorem. Nunc eget lorem dolor sed viverra ipsum nunc aliquet. Nibh praesent tristique magna sit amet purus gravida quis blandit. Porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur. Fames ac turpis egestas integer eget aliquet nibh praesent. Sit amet aliquam id diam maecenas. Neque viverra justo nec ultrices dui sapien. Nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula ullamcorper malesuada. Vulputate mi sit amet mauris commodo quis imperdiet massa. Placerat vestibulum lectus mauris ultrices eros in cursus turpis. Quis vel eros donec ac odio tempor. Pretium lectus quam id leo in vitae turpis massa sed. Viverra orci sagittis eu volutpat odio facilisis mauris.

Viverra nam libero justo laoreet sit amet cursus sit amet. Quis varius quam quisque id diam vel quam. Etiam non quam lacus suspendisse faucibus interdum posuere lorem ipsum. Lacus vestibulum sed arcu non odio. Nulla at volutpat diam ut venenatis tellus. Rutrum quisque non tellus orci ac auctor augue. Facilisis magna etiam tempor orci eu lobortis. Non tellus orci ac auctor augue mauris augue. Pellentesque diam volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas. Amet est placerat in egestas. Eget nunc lobortis mattis aliquam faucibus. Et leo duis ut diam quam. At erat pellentesque adipiscing commodo elit at imperdiet dui accumsan. Vulputate odio ut enim blandit volutpat. Nisl vel pretium lectus quam id leo.

Fusce ut placerat orci nulla pellentesque dignissim. Elit pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada. Feugiat in ante metus dictum at. Ut placerat orci nulla pellentesque dignissim. Nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna nec tincidunt. Sed velit dignissim sodales ut. Eleifend quam adipiscing vitae proin sagittis nisl rhoncus mattis rhoncus. Est ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi etiam dignissim diam quis enim. Lectus mauris ultrices eros in cursus turpis massa tincidunt. Posuere morbi leo urna molestie at. Sagittis aliquam malesuada bibendum arcu vitae elementum curabitur vitae. Quis vel eros donec ac. Fermentum odio eu feugiat pretium nibh.

[Chips]

I'm beginning to think Morkonan and kohlrak are in a race to create the biggest walls of text...

Has to be said, the topic was near immediately derailed into the usual forum ego boosting; tedious. Was about to start catching up but this alerted me to the futility of it, so cheers