If “terms are simply created for understanding”, then why is their misuse so unimportant? Isn’t the whole point of a term’s use in understanding only obtained with the proper usage? Isn’t improper usage actually creating confusion and misunderstanding?
Shouldn’t you care?
> ... Because this actually leads to a distorted understanding of programming languages. So it's not always that simple; it's not either "terms don't matter" or "I'll kill you if you misuse it!".
I felt this for a long time, but this helps me understand the challenge For instance, Autisim is a wide swath from what I know. Spectrum disorder makes more sense, but people not familiar with this treat Autism as true/false. Its so much more nuanced that that. Same goes for so many things as I get older. I agree with the author, take it easy when someone misuses a term that you hold a specific meaning to.
Autism being a spectrum doesn’t mean it is not a true/false. Both can be true. You can either be autistic (somewhere on the spectrum) or not on the spectrum at all.
the author wanted one single definition for terms like "module" in the field of programming, realized that there is not one, and stopped being so bothered about nailing down exact definitions, because words like "module" mean different things to different people and in different contexts
Look into what happened with machinists. "Feel" for the machine, and intuition for the craft was replaced by gcode. The work product, instead of the knowledge requisite to realize a work, became the container of value. With enough samples, a new approach is born in which understanding of the basics never has to crystalize. One merely hunts and pecks, grabbing errant bits of previous things hewn through understanding, and composing them into something close enough.
This is what lay ahead in the age of AI. The problem though, comes in the first time that system goes fully offline and people with sufficient skill to bring it back online no longer exist, or worse, are prevented from doing so for one group or another to maintain capability asymmetry.
The years ahead are certainly going to be something to adjust to, yet individually, I question whether that act of adjusting is a good thing.
> And it was a deep lesson that now feels too obvious: terms are simply created for understanding. That is what matters at the end of the day. This isn’t just about programming; sadly, we often go through fierce battles over a concept or a problem while not realizing that each of us has a different definition for it.
Yeah, I think it’s interesting to think about programming in this way. At the end of the day, JavaScript is just a bunch of words someone invented and made a computer do something with, and you can also invent your own words to whatever you want too
the author wanted one single definition for terms like "module" in the field of programming, realized that there is not one, and stopped being so bothered about nailing down exact definitions, because words like "module" mean different things to different people and in different contexts
This is what lay ahead in the age of AI. The problem though, comes in the first time that system goes fully offline and people with sufficient skill to bring it back online no longer exist, or worse, are prevented from doing so for one group or another to maintain capability asymmetry.
The years ahead are certainly going to be something to adjust to, yet individually, I question whether that act of adjusting is a good thing.
Yeah, I think it’s interesting to think about programming in this way. At the end of the day, JavaScript is just a bunch of words someone invented and made a computer do something with, and you can also invent your own words to whatever you want too