Stats for nerds
5recommend
8mentions
5people
2019–2024years
100% recommend
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What Hacker News says
- Great article! I've posted it in other comments before, but it's worth repeating:
The best explanation I've seen is in the book "The Secret Life of Programs" by Jonathan E. Steinhart. I'll quote that paragraph verbatim:
---
Computer programming is a two-step process:
1. Understand the universe.
2. Explain it to a three-year-old.
What does this mean? Well, you can't write computer programs to do things that you yourself don't understand. For example, you can't write a spellchecker if you don't know the rules for spelling, and you can't write a good action video game if you don't know physics. So, the first step in becoming a good computer programmer is to learn as much as you can about everything else. Solutions to problems often come from unexpected places, so don't ignore something just because it doesn't seem immediately relevant.
The second step of the process requires explaining what you know to a machine that has a very rigid view of the world, like young children do. This rigidity in children is really obvious when they're about three years old. Let's say you're trying to get out the door. You ask your child, "Where are your shoes?" The response: "There." She did answer your question. The problem is, she doesn't understand that you're really asking her to put her shoes on so that you both can go somewhere. Flexibility and the ability to make inferences are skills that children learn as they grow up. But computers are like Peter Pan: they never grow up.
- The best explanation I've seen is in the book "The Secret Life of Programs" by Jonathan E. Steinhart. I'll quote that paragraph verbatim:
---
Computer programming is a two-step process:
1. Understand the universe.
2. Explain it to a three-year-old.
What does this mean? Well, you can't write computer programs to do things that you yourself don't understand. For example, you can't write a spellchecker if you don't know the rules for spelling, and you can't write a good action video game if you don't know physics. So, the first step in becoming a good computer programmer is to learn as much as you can about everything else. Solutions to problems often come from unexpected places, so don't ignore something just because it doesn't seem immediately relevant.
The second step of the process requires explaining what you know to a machine that has a very rigid view of the world, like young children do. This rigidity in children is really obvious when they're about three years old. Let's say you're trying to get out the door. You ask your child, "Where are your shoes?" The response: "There." She did answer your question. The problem is, she doesn't understand that you're really asking her to put her shoes on so that you both can go somewhere. Flexibility and the ability to make inferences are skills that children learn as they grow up. But computers are like Peter Pan: they never grow up.
- I’ve really enjoyed The Secret Life of Programs by Jonathan E. Steinhart. From analog signals, to gates, to cpus and memory, and so on all the way up. Very cool concept, well executed.
- > I'm afraid that if I show him how to download (or, better yet, build) emacs, how to build SBCL, install SLIME, etc... and hand the kid copies of SICL and PCL someone will call child protective services on me.
Fwiw, I'm only a couple years older than #2, and I would kill to have someone in meatspace who would help me with all of the above.
As far as other options, I would say Pico-8, tic80, UXN, Minetest/Minecraft, Godot, or Unity may all be decent options to start with, depending on how in depth you want to go.
Oh, also I really really really really like the book The Secret life of Programs. In my opinion, it really is worth learning how the layer below where you're working works.
- I highly recommend "The Secret Life of Programs" for this purpose.
It starts at the hardware level and works up - it definitely massively improved my understanding of everything that goes on in a machine.
- You may like "The Secret Life of Programs" by Jonathan Steinhart.
It starts at boolean logic and works up to a web browser and then some other stuff.
Edit: It's a high level covering of each topic of course, it does have to fit in a book. It's ~444 pages.
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2009–2026
