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Philosophy in Technology: Program or Be Programmed.

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skafather84
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27 May 2010, 11:55 am

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imV3pPIUy1k&feature=player_embedded#![/youtube]


An interesting little speech from Douglas Rushkoff from earlier this year.


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auntblabby
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27 May 2010, 5:42 pm

it's all a racket of which the education [and educated] establishment is the main beneficiary- i.e., get educated [advanced uni degree] or work for those who were smart enough [and had enough money to pay] to get educated- learn programming or work for/under those who were smart enough to learn computer programming. but there is no practical difference between those who didn't get educated and those who cannot be educated, they are both in the same disenfranchised boat. it may be all too human but there is nothing humane about it.
on the subject of computer programming- for those of us who aren't bigbrains, why hasn't there been more development of prefab programming, where the pieces are user-friendly and can be mixed and matched like in that music program called sonic foundry acid where bits and pieces of music can be assembled into a quasi-musical whole- isn't it possible to mix and match bits of sub-programming to make a real computer program? at least thataway, more of us non-techies might be useful creators of intellectual property and useful stuff.
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just my 2-cents' worth, adjusted for inflation :)



psychohist
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27 May 2010, 7:16 pm

auntblabby wrote:
on the subject of computer programming- for those of us who aren't bigbrains, why hasn't there been more development of prefab programming, where the pieces are user-friendly and can be mixed and matched like in that music program called sonic foundry acid where bits and pieces of music can be assembled into a quasi-musical whole- isn't it possible to mix and match bits of sub-programming to make a real computer program? at least thataway, more of us non-techies might be useful creators of intellectual property and useful stuff.

There actually has been a lot of development of reusable components. There's still some essential thought that goes into each program, though. If an average nonmusician put a symphony together from those mix and match music parts, it probably wouldn't have the quality of Beethoven, either.



Asmodeus
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30 May 2010, 4:27 am

auntblabby wrote:
for those of us who aren't bigbrains, why hasn't there been more development of prefab programming, where the pieces are user-friendly and can be mixed and matched like in that music program called sonic foundry acid where bits and pieces of music can be assembled into a quasi-musical whole- isn't it possible to mix and match bits of sub-programming to make a real computer program? at least thataway, more of us non-techies might be useful creators of intellectual property and useful stuff.
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just my 2-cents' worth, adjusted for inflation :)

Visual Basic.



Robdemanc
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02 Jun 2010, 12:58 pm

An interesting discussion. What I got was he was saying that each new progression in society stands on top of the last generation. Was he just using computer programming as an analogy? I wasn't sure.

Anyway I agree with what I think hes saying. In the UK I always think of our current generation (or at least all those who lived in the 20th century) as being the spoilt children of the Victorians. It was they who gave us the industrial revolution, it was they who charted the world and brought new theories to light. It was they who discovered and invented the foundation of our modern technologies. All we have had to do since is philosophise on what we now know. And what we now know, we know because those who lived before found out.

That is why I think of us as spoilt. Spoilt brats living off the hard work of our ancestors.



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02 Jun 2010, 2:35 pm

Asmodeus wrote:
Visual Basic.


Was just about to make the same comment. VB.NET is great and lets the coder focus on what the application should do. C# has the best of both worlds, like the GUI stuff from VB and the code from C++.

Given enough time, there will probably be a merger of VB into "C#++" or something, then a merger with Java would be nice (since the two languages arent that very far away, its like Norweigan and Swedish really..). And C# today is much easier to code in than C++.

There are also special development languages that let the programmer focus on functionality rather than say interface design, threading, classes, events/exceptions and flow-logic.


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skafather84
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02 Jun 2010, 2:45 pm

Robdemanc wrote:
An interesting discussion. What I got was he was saying that each new progression in society stands on top of the last generation. Was he just using computer programming as an analogy? I wasn't sure.

Anyway I agree with what I think hes saying. In the UK I always think of our current generation (or at least all those who lived in the 20th century) as being the spoilt children of the Victorians. It was they who gave us the industrial revolution, it was they who charted the world and brought new theories to light. It was they who discovered and invented the foundation of our modern technologies. All we have had to do since is philosophise on what we now know. And what we now know, we know because those who lived before found out.

That is why I think of us as spoilt. Spoilt brats living off the hard work of our ancestors.


He was more proposing that the current step is that we have to learn to program. It was meant to be literal; a prediction of how technology is going and what the next "literate" is.


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skafather84
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02 Jun 2010, 2:48 pm

auntblabby wrote:
for those of us who aren't bigbrains, why hasn't there been more development of prefab programming, where the pieces are user-friendly and can be mixed and matched like in that music program called sonic foundry acid where bits and pieces of music can be assembled into a quasi-musical whole- isn't it possible to mix and match bits of sub-programming to make a real computer program? at least thataway, more of us non-techies might be useful creators of intellectual property and useful stuff.



That's what he's basically predicting and why he's advocating to learn actual programming so that you're not put into someone else's box and controlled by them.


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Robdemanc
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02 Jun 2010, 5:11 pm

skafather84 wrote:
Robdemanc wrote:
An interesting discussion. What I got was he was saying that each new progression in society stands on top of the last generation. Was he just using computer programming as an analogy? I wasn't sure.

Anyway I agree with what I think hes saying. In the UK I always think of our current generation (or at least all those who lived in the 20th century) as being the spoilt children of the Victorians. It was they who gave us the industrial revolution, it was they who charted the world and brought new theories to light. It was they who discovered and invented the foundation of our modern technologies. All we have had to do since is philosophise on what we now know. And what we now know, we know because those who lived before found out.

That is why I think of us as spoilt. Spoilt brats living off the hard work of our ancestors.


He was more proposing that the current step is that we have to learn to program. It was meant to be literal; a prediction of how technology is going and what the next "literate" is.



Oh I see. So I went a bit off the deep end then? But I don't get it. Why do we all need to learn how to program? I can program but I don't see the need for everyone to do it.



skafather84
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02 Jun 2010, 6:01 pm

Robdemanc wrote:
skafather84 wrote:
Robdemanc wrote:
An interesting discussion. What I got was he was saying that each new progression in society stands on top of the last generation. Was he just using computer programming as an analogy? I wasn't sure.

Anyway I agree with what I think hes saying. In the UK I always think of our current generation (or at least all those who lived in the 20th century) as being the spoilt children of the Victorians. It was they who gave us the industrial revolution, it was they who charted the world and brought new theories to light. It was they who discovered and invented the foundation of our modern technologies. All we have had to do since is philosophise on what we now know. And what we now know, we know because those who lived before found out.

That is why I think of us as spoilt. Spoilt brats living off the hard work of our ancestors.


He was more proposing that the current step is that we have to learn to program. It was meant to be literal; a prediction of how technology is going and what the next "literate" is.



Which is why he was using the analogies of earlier generations and learning to read and what not. Reading was not a necessary skill until relative recent years in the grand scheme of history. Programming will be the same way. At the very least, if you can't create codes, you should learn how to understand what they're saying and doing and become literate.

I think he's missed a step technology-wise...but I was more enamored with his description of how history progressed with those who can and those who can't. It's an interesting lesson in the philosophy of life and a tip for the future and where to be prepared for it now.

Oh I see. So I went a bit off the deep end then? But I don't get it. Why do we all need to learn how to program? I can program but I don't see the need for everyone to do it.


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auntblabby
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03 Jun 2010, 12:11 am

skafather84 wrote:
That's what he's basically predicting and why he's advocating to learn actual programming so that you're not put into someone else's box and controlled by them.


not all of us have the mental horsepower to learn programming. that is why i mentioned sonic foundry acid, as it lets those of us sans musical genes make a form of music. those of us sans programming genes could use a like program, even if we sacrifice the top level of control over the tech milieu. IOW we all can't be ultimate controllers. i realize it is "control or be controlled" but that is the way it has been down here on earth for quite some time, and it would be great if this would change but i don't expect it to do so anytime soon.