Slashdot Mirror
Literacy: Natural Language vs. Code
sirReal.83. writes "The Guardian has an article by Dylan Evans, author of Introducing Evolutionary Psychology. The article discusses literacy in computer languages, and suggests that we are in the 'technological middle ages.' Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking; just as we try to make computers to adapt to us, we must adapt to them." Some good points are raised, with the example of the command line interface used, which is a much better choice than, say, an array of switches or a punch card.
For a more in-depth discussion of this topic, see Neal Stephenson's essay In The Beginning Was The Command Line.
Nooface
In Search of the Post-PC Interface
Microsoft is oppressing the masses with the GUI. Everyone must learn a scripting language in order to manipulate information. Suuuuuuure.
Who the hell wrote this article, the union of all slashdot posts?
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
The article suggests that machines deal in text instead of through colorful GUI windows. This isn't true at all. The computer has no preference between user interfaces; it doesn't make a bit of difference to the machine.
Whether or not I'm adding a switch on the command line or checking a box in some GUI, I'm performing the exact same function - that is, toggling some flag/setting within the program. It's just a different representation. The article suggests that text is the language of computers. This is not true at all. The language of computers is a stream of octets that are interpreted as instructions by the processor. That is the only language the computer actually understands.
I can say for sure that I find the GUI very efficient at times. For example, I do some video editing and converting, and find myself using mencoder (a tool included with mplayer) rather often. There's a LOT of switches at the command line, and often I find myself spending several minutes browsing the manual page to find what switches I need set. And even then, sometimes I find myself turning to Google to find the information I need. I can't help but think that it could be done much more efficiently with a very basic graphical front-end. The CLI isn't always more efficient.
I know, there's many tasks that are better done from the command line. But to say that a user operating a GUI is further removed from the internals of the computer, is just incorrect. Whether or not I'm adding a switch on the command line or checking a box in a GUI, it generally has the same effect.
The suggestion that people should use CLIs instead of GUIs so that they can understand how their computers work at a fundamental level seems kind of ironic to me. CLIs were originally introduced as just another layer of abstraction. When you type "ls", you don't really think that you're sending the command directly to your CPU, do you? The command shell processes the text that you input, interprets it, and cranks out a result (I oversimplify, of course). Even your file system is just another level of abstraction, as is the C or C++ code that you type in to be compiled. On the other hand, additional abstraction can simplify user tasks tremendously and make learning curves much shallower. Try writing a "hello, world" program in ASM^H^H^H octal, and then in Perl or Python or C or java or whatever, and see how much easier it is!
I'm not sure the average user need to start cracking open books on Java (or even VB). Yeah, as a programmer I take great interest in how the computer works, and it probably makes me more productive. However, I think I was very productive with the computer without actually knowing any programming languages that well.
The key to being productive, after understanding the basics of the computer in terms of memory, files, etc., is tools. How do you search for text in files (grep, find)? How do edit HTML files (text or GUI based program)? How do you move files around? (samba, ftp, etc.)
It may be useful to at least be able to wrap your head around something like a regular expression, though even being able to understand what "*.txt" means is nearly as useful. For the adventurous, a scripting language. I don't think any more, at least given the current tools, is that necessary. Making a full-fledged program is hard work, it takes time. Most tasks you may think require programming are already be implemented.
Obvoiusly, computers shouldn't be made purely for those who have no patience to learn. However, there is a balance, and everyone knowing assembler Java, or even HTML isn't it.
This type of nonsense always comes from programmer geeks, too. Face it, the computer is a tool, not an end in itself. Sure, it'd be nice if every school child could write perl and understood regular expressions, but why? I'm sure most of you can drive a car, but how many can rebuild an engine? Can you do a brake job? Sure, being a mechanic in the height of the industrial age would have given you a financial advantage over your peers, but in the end, the automobile is just a tool that gets you from point A to B. The same is true of computers, it's just a tool. If I'm say, a theoretical chemist, why would I need to understand how to get under the hood of my operating system and tinker with it. It's just a tool. I might be interested in some scripting language that my chemistry visualization or analysis programs use, but for the most part, I shouldn't have to tinker with my computer. I should be able to put the key in the ignition (login) and it should work. If it's broken, then I take it to the technician and let her get under the hood.
As has already been pointed out in other posts, computers do NOT have any preference for text. All he is doing is spelling out HIS preference for text and projecting it as a need for everyone to learn 'the language of the machine'. Does he realize that the language of the machine is just a streams of 1's and 0's? Apparantly not. I can't believe anyone published this drivel.
Making a tool more accessible for the masses is exactly what should be done, and is the normal progression for any technology. Perhaps he thinks that we should program our VCR's by setting dip switches, or reprogramming it's code just to catch the latest episode of The Simpsons?
Yet another example of someone with far too much time on his hands to think coupled with an amazing lack of common sense.
This guy is an idiot.
By presenting us with colourful screens and buttons for us to click on, Microsoft encourages us to believe that we can force computers to adapt entirely to our preferences for visual images, without having to adapt ourselves to their preference for text.
Computers have no preference for text. They have no preference for graphics. If they could be said to have any sort of preference at all, it would be binary. And that would still be a misleading statement.
His goofy comments about html don't make any sense. HTML is just as artficial a construct as the graphics rendered by the browser engine.
Does this guy think that you can just write some code on a piece of paper and show it to a CPU? The text on your screen is already an abstraction.
Sounds like he has some problem with the fact that even idiots like himself can use a computer without any kind of in depth knowledge.
And all this nonsense about forcing computers to adapt to us. WE MAKE COMPUTERS. They didn't "evolve" of their own volition. I'm surprised this guy isn't complaining about how using a steering wheel doesn't require knowledge of the actual steering mechanism.
If I want to make a 3D game, I can use OpenGL or DirectX. However, I have little clue how exactly telling OpenGL to put a quad with various features on the screen actually gets it on the screen with those features. For all I care it's magic. It just works. OpenGL and DirectX are my lowest levels of abstraction for 3D graphics currently. There's also DarkBASIC et al for those who don't want to go even that far down.
If I want to make a 3D API like OpenGL or DirectX, I need to dig down deeper to understand how graphics cards work in order ot get any realistic amount of speed. Consoles tend to have fewer levels of abstraction.
This is how it works in every area. You have the people on top who have little to no abstraction. They know exactly how every little thing fits together. And they get paid accordingly. The people on the bottom just give you your burger. And are paid accordingly. They don't care how the meat or buns or whatever got there or where the money goes aside from their pay.
I can imagine that like all things, computers are going to reach a level of complexity that's just flat out absurd. Hobbyists work on kit planes but it takes years of training to properly maintain a Boeing 747. As the complexity of planes went up, the requirements for getting hired to work on them also went up.
However as usual, there will be a handful of geniouses that understand everything who write abstraction layer unpon abstraction layer until a level is reached that it doesn't take a genious to get a polygon on a screen.
All that will change is the amount of education you'll need to be able to function at a certain level.
Planes are one thing but it used to be that to fix a computer you had to hunt for a vacuum tube or whatnot that was out and replace it. These days, if a computer breaks, within 5 minutes you can determine the problem then throw out the defective part and buy a new one with little training. It's actually gotten easier to maintain PCs. I don't have to try to find and then fix a transistor in the northbridge. I just throw the MB out and get a new one.
So yes, you do need to know assembler for certain positions to earn a certain pay. But, there will always be other entry levels that don't require that level of knowledge. It's up to the individual to choose what level they want to strive for.
In conclusion, dumb, not well thought out article.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Bah. Everything in information technology is a metaphor, an illusion to trick the human mind into coping with the machine. Where do you think the term "channel" came from? It's a metaphor, using a nautical term to boil down an overbearingly complex technical description into a concept non-technicians can understand when trying to get their television to show them Gilligan's Island.
Saying the command line is "closer" to the way a computer "really operates" is preposterous. The command line itself is a metaphor, an abstraction that simulates lingual conversation, where a GUI is an abstraction that simulates tactile space.
Most programming languages are based around the lingual metaphor... but not all of them. Prograph was a language based around manipulating shapes in a super-flow chart, and Helix is a relational database language based around the same concept, only in a declarative rather than procedural programming context.
Computers aren't even remotely human... they aren't even remotely alive or self-aware. These are just anthropomorphizations people assign to the system, because they don't understand that the command line, the C++ language, the GUI, are simply anthropomorphic metaphors, conceptual hacks that empower the user.
The very first Hollerith machine used on Ellis Island was very close to a GUI system. You plugged in the card, and turned clearly marked dials to indicate nationality, age, etc, which were punched into a card (stored im memory.) Information was read from memory by putting the cards in a reader, where the appropriate option was lit up on a menu of possible options listed in plain english, corrsponding to the nationality, age, etc, as it was stored on the card. It depended on tactile metaphor to store and visual metaphor to retrieve data, rather than an answer-response metaphor like a CLI. The only way to get closer to the metal is to put the bits into memory by hand with a hole punch.
What's needed are better, newer, more empowering metaphors. GUI's engage the part of the brain that deals with tactile, pattern and spatial relationships, so they're a better metaphor than a command line in most instances. We need to transcend the GUI with a more involving illusion, not just swap it for an older illusion that doesn't take as much advantage of human neurology and psychology... like the command line, or job control language, or patch panels.
SoupIsGood Food
In the olden days, there was an expression used to refer to those disciplines and sciences deemed necessary to the free man. That expression was the liberal arts. Though today we might associate that phrase with endless "humanities" classes, or with a college degree not useful for any particular career, of old it meant simply those arts -- practices -- necessary to exercise the liberty of a free citizen. The classical liberal arts were seven: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy (for which read "physics other than ballistics"), and music.
(Please note that literary criticism, social theory, and deconstruction are not named among the liberal arts.)
We still recognize (I hope) that one who cannot recognize a fallacy in argumentation, or who cannot do arithmetic, is severely impaired in exercising the freedoms of man and citizen. A person who is unacquainted with works of literature may miss cultural references in a politician's speech, but a person unable to cope with rhetoric and logic cannot even tell if the speaker is contradicting himself. Likewise, one who cannot add and subtract cannot tell if he is being cheated in the marketplace.
From a classical viewpoint, what Evans is suggesting is that an understanding of computation has become a liberal art: a discipline necessary to exercise freedom. It is unfortunate and misleading, however, to frame this in terms of "programming languages" or "command lines" -- both of which are simply abstractions (just as is the GUI) on top of the mathematics of computation. The essence that must be understood is no language other than mathematics.
(As an aside: Historically, computer science -- which has little, I might note, to do with "knowing programming languages" -- is an outgrowth of mathematical logic, which is itself an extension of the liberal arts of arithmetic, geometry, and classical (syllogistic) logic. Thus, Aristotle and Dodgson, to pick two, prefigure Turing and McCarthy.)
The same fundamental calculi of functions, algorithms, and Boolean binary logic underlie all of the abstractions we may encounter in computing. GUIs, shells, assemblers, virtual worlds -- all of these are necessarily founded upon the same mathematics. No matter how complex the language or how pretty the interface, it must abide by mathematical logic or it cannot function.
Thus, if Dylan Evans seeks, with Neo, "the code behind the graphics", he should not look to the Unix shell, to C, or even to machine code to find it. Those are tools, not truths, and freedom comes with understanding truths, not simply with mastering tools. Learn the liberal arts -- mathematics and logic -- and you will be much better prepared to defend yourself as a free citizen in a computerized world.