> Only to the extent that mathematics is "man-defined", but then physics > et al are built entirely on mathematics so I'm not sure where you are > going with this. Computer science, and by extension AI, is not a > field coalesced out of an arbitrary set of brain farts.
Computer Science and AI are defined by humans with the help of math to achieve a specific goal. There are almost always multiple ways of achieving the specific goal, this is where the bias comes in, people usually chose that which is the way which is easiest for them and their colleagues and don't give much thought to how easy it will be for outsiders to understand their programming language or AI concept. > The only substantive cultural bias in programming languages is the > pervasive use of English language keywords, how can you say that? Programming is essentially a way to solve problems and all cultures solve problems differently. > which hasn't seemed to > slow down pasty white males who do not speak English a whit. There > are only a handful of abstract concepts that underly all programming > languages, what are these concepts? And if all you need to do is understand a few concepts, then why do computer experts (people who presumably understand all of these concepts) have languages they prefer and argue about which languages are best? >and if you understand those abstract concepts then the > construction details of the programming language are largely > immaterial. How, precisely, would a female minority design a lambda > calculus programming language that would be radically different from > the myriad of such languages invented by pasty white male geeks? A female minority (or any other minority, anybody who is far away from the dominant geek culture that dominates CS) probably wouldn't ever get to the point of designing a programming language unless she joined the geek culture, and then she would be distanced from all the other people who don't understand programming, and thus not any more able to create a useful and easy to understand programming language than the geeky white males. > > Programming languages are derived from mathematical models, with some > application-oriented syntactic sugar to make common operations > simpler. They are precise and highly regular constructs whose only > "cultural bias" is that they disallow ambiguity as a basic feature > that follows from their mathematical derivation. The cultural bias lies in the choices that people make for the syntactic sugar and the mathematical models. > Being able to > manipulate complex multi-dimensional graphs in your head and wait, why do I have to manipulate complex multi-dimensional graphs in my head? I'm a programmer and I've never done that before. I'd be interested in knowing why you think this skill is important, but I can guarantee you many programmers never do it. > communicate without ambiguity are the only background skills required > to be a good software geek; the latter is learnable, Communication is necessary for programmers? I'd say useful, but not necessary. In my experience, it seems that human communication skills are inversely related to the ability to understand computers, but there are exceptions to that. >but I suspect the > former is largely innate and even most white males are relatively poor > at it. Why do you think it is innate? > > Cheers, > > J. Andrew Rogers > > > > ----- > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; > -- Robin Gane-McCalla YIM: Robin_Ganemccalla AIM: Robinganemccalla ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=69736569-aa9169
