>, I'm just not sure what point you're trying to make with that relevance,
I'll make an attempt to explain why jerf's response looks out of place.
Basically, wolfgke and jerf looked at the 2 groupings of programming languages (mainstream megacorps vs unknown) as evidence for 2 different goals.
wolfgke: generalization path -- dominance of megacorps languages means you must keep going one level lower in hierarchy of computer science concepts to learn universal concepts instead of proprietary syntax.
jerf: pedagogy ease of use -- megacorps languages are not provably any harder to learn than specialized toy languages
How did those two end up talking about 2 different things?!?
If you look at the comment chain from posters threatofrain-->bryanrasmussen-->wolfgke ... they started a dialogue that keeps diving lower and lower in underlying principles. It's a variation of the XKCD comic about "purity".[1]
jerf's response doesn't continue that purity dissection. Instead, his emphasis on pedagogy seems to point back to the original article by Jakob Nielsen which prompted this thread. That article says that elite users (like HN readers) can use complicated computer software and we forget that most others can't. The communication breakdown was assuming that wolfgke listed the megacorps language as a (ease-of-use) response to J Nielsen instead of a specific (purity) reply to bryanrasmussen.
But then again, I might have misunderstood everybody and I have no idea what people were trying to say.
> wolfgke: generalization path -- dominance of megacorps languages means you must keep going one level lower in hierarchy of computer science concepts to learn universal concepts instead of proprietary syntax.
Correct, with the additional (IMHO important) fact that threatofrain criticized "coincidental interfaces made by a few mega corporations" and looked for more general skills, bryanrasmussen meant that "knowing how to program" is such a skill, but I analyzed that most popular programming languages are also just "coincidental interfaces made by a few mega corporations" (this time for programming instead of the general user), so that we have nothing won concerning the original problem of "coincidental interfaces made by a few mega corporations" - we are just some layers deeper. So I suggested that if you look for more general skills, you probably have to look even deeper into the mathematical or the electrical engineering side of computing.
I'll make an attempt to explain why jerf's response looks out of place.
Basically, wolfgke and jerf looked at the 2 groupings of programming languages (mainstream megacorps vs unknown) as evidence for 2 different goals.
wolfgke: generalization path -- dominance of megacorps languages means you must keep going one level lower in hierarchy of computer science concepts to learn universal concepts instead of proprietary syntax.
jerf: pedagogy ease of use -- megacorps languages are not provably any harder to learn than specialized toy languages
How did those two end up talking about 2 different things?!?
If you look at the comment chain from posters threatofrain-->bryanrasmussen-->wolfgke ... they started a dialogue that keeps diving lower and lower in underlying principles. It's a variation of the XKCD comic about "purity".[1]
jerf's response doesn't continue that purity dissection. Instead, his emphasis on pedagogy seems to point back to the original article by Jakob Nielsen which prompted this thread. That article says that elite users (like HN readers) can use complicated computer software and we forget that most others can't. The communication breakdown was assuming that wolfgke listed the megacorps language as a (ease-of-use) response to J Nielsen instead of a specific (purity) reply to bryanrasmussen.
But then again, I might have misunderstood everybody and I have no idea what people were trying to say.
[1]https://xkcd.com/435/