On 07/02/17 05:36, Edward K. Ream wrote:
On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 5:12 PM, Sr U <rud...@gmail.com
<mailto:rud...@gmail.com>> wrote:
In 1992 I, with considerable sadness, gave up on programming
because I couldn't keep myself oriented sufficiently in larger
programs.
...
I had a master's degree in computer science and I *loved* creating
programs...the only thing in my life I had ever had that sort of
passion for.
...
I was working with kids with only high school degrees who could
program circles around me -- because they could remember the names
and locations of their functions, in a 100 page program, and could
pretty much jump around in their code. I couldn't do that - my
visual memory was poor.
So I gave up.
I have said many times that you don't need a great memory to be an
effective programmer. What you need are great tools. Even without Leo,
most programmers rely on autocompletion and bookmarks.
Agreed. Pharo/Smalltalk code browser is another great tool that releases
the programmer to depend excessively of his/her memory and breaks the
linear narrative of "pile of files" development. I remember feeling some
kind of "violence" about why on earth start to think a problem with a
hierarchy of packages, classes, protocols and messages? Seems too
over-structured and was not the way I think about problems/programs when
I started. Having an outliner emergent tree metaphor was liberating. Now
I have the code browser and the interactive tree as a way to think about
problems in a complementary fashion (trees have also limitations for
understanding and thinking when they got deeply nested). Now that tools
and live coding has become an integral part of my "thinking with
computers" experience.
I have always been sad about how I had to leave my passion for
programming behind because I just couldn't do it well enough with
"flat" programming files and code scattered like cards strewn in a
cruel game of "52 card pickup".
Leo will help, but if you really have a passion for programming, you
won't let difficulties stand in your way. To paraphrase Tom Hanks
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndL7y0MIRE4>:
Programming is hard. It's /supposed /to be hard. If it wasn't hard,
everybody would do it. It's the hard that makes it great.
That remembers me "Coding is not ‘fun’, it’s technically and ethically
complex" [a] an excellent essay from the excellent Aeon magazine. Also
Papert's ideas about serious fun versus fun, like in playing the piano
versus listening the piano.
[a]
https://aeon.co/ideas/coding-is-not-fun-it-s-technically-and-ethically-complex
One of my biggest surprises in turning my attention back to
programming all these years later (mostly because I want to dev
elop a big program for my business) is WHAT A MESS CODE HAS
BECOME. Code is probably 1000 times larger and slower than
equivalent code would have been allowed to be 30 years ago.
/Some/ code is a mess, surely. But not all.
And there still isn't a decent editor for what you call "literate"
programming. I've come to Leo after searching, for the Nth time,
for "tree programming editor" ... and finally getting a reasonable
lead.
Leo redefines literate programming.
Yes it does and has a important key idea: self referential programmable
documents under a tree-like metaphor. That's why I think that Leo ideas
are better suited that what we have now in literate computing (a concept
that extends critically literate programming[b]) and they can become an
integral part of the first four points of the Jupyter ecosystem[3] 1)
Interactive computing as a real thing, 2) Widespread creation of
computational narratives, 3) Programming for specific insight rather
than generalization, 4) Individuals and organizations embracing multiple
languages (mode details at [c]).
[b]
http://blog.jupyter.org/2015/07/07/project-jupyter-computational-narratives-as-the-engine-of-collaborative-data-science/
[c] https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/the-state-of-jupyter
So it is important to me that I give Leo a shake.
Please feel free to ask as many questions as you like. It takes
courage to become a newbie again.
Yes do it. Open newbie questions are gold and a virtue they can bring to
any community. The way that newbie and questions mature in the open is a
guide for building better communities.
Cheers,
Offray
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