On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 9:56 PM, Andrew Lentvorski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Bob La Quey wrote: > > > On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 5:42 AM, Todd Walton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > So... programming is telling a machine what to do? Seems pretty > > > straightforward. > > > > > > > > > > > > -todd > > > > > > > If it is so straight forward then why is it so hard to do? > > > > I think it is because we do not know how to do it well. > > Which goes back to the fact that despite your statement > > we do not know what it is we are trying to do or how to do it. > > > > Well, the difficulty makes a lot more sense if you regard programming as > "teaching" rather than engineering or science.
Teaching implies learning to me. I do _not_ see computers as learning machines. So I think this is a bad metaphor. This metaphor misleads us. > Teaching well is hard. Why should programming be any different? Teaching is only hard when you teach poor learners. I know a number of educators (not great "teachers" ;) who consider the entire educational process just one of filtering. Find the ones who can do, encourage them and stay out of their way. Personally I always preferred that approach in my teachers. I suppose you could argue that computers are extremely poor learners so that is why they are hard to teach. As far as I am concerned that simply stretches the metafor to the breaking point. Human based metaphors for programming or computing mislead more often then enlighten. BobLQ -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
