I’ve taught programming and computer science. One thing I’ve learned is that, for me, it is far easier to teach some things than others. The fact I find is, the more basic or idiomatic something is, the harder it is to correct somebody who’s mistaken. I mean, look, if you don’t understand how to use variable elimination on a Bayes Net, but you’re generally a (semi-)competent programmer or problem solver and can do math, we can work on that. I can try a different example, I can explain the algorithm in different terms. However, if you simply cannot fathom how to write a for loop, I just can’t help you. There are about three ways I can explain a basic C-style for loop, if none of them are helping then I feel really bad, but there’s just nothing else I can do.
To me in programming there are a number of things that are just so basic that I can’t get into the head of somebody who doesn’t “get” them. I don’t mean people who haven’t been exposed to it, or jump into somebody’s code with no experience and go “…wut?” I’m talking about people who you sit down and give them a minimal program with a for loop their eyes glaze over and no matter what you or they do they can’t understand it.
(Note that “for loop” is just an example, you can just as easily substitute it with “if statement” or “function call” or “assignment” and so on)
I don’t think they’re dumb, but I just wish I understood how their brain worked so I could help them understand. Are they just overthinking it? Do they just have a preconceived notion that “programming is hard” or they’re “not smart enough” so they subconsciously block out any attempt at explanation because they think it will be “too tough to understand”? Maybe they just think on some alien level that my brain just does not operate on, thus making any attempts at discussion an exercise in talking past each other? I don’t know, but it’s very frustrating (on both ends, I’m sure).
I’ve omitted explaining what exactly a “for loop” and such are just because it’s not really important, but I’d be happy to explain if anybody really is curious.
What about you guys? Anything that you get that is so basic to you that it feels alien when somebody else doesn’t “get it”? I’d prefer this thread not be mean-spirited or judgmental, but if that’s the way it goes then there’s not much I can do to stop it.
I’m just speculating based on my own experience, but a lot of the times when I just “don’t get” something that seems very basic to the person that is explaining it, it’s because I don’t understand the significance of it.
For instance, this is from the Wikipedia page for the for loop: In computer science a for loop is a programming language statement which allows code to be repeatedly executed.
Okay? If you said that to me, I’d probably stare back blankly. I understand the meaning of the sentence, but I have no programming context in which to place it. So while I superficially know what it is, I do not really “understand” a for loop.
I have the same problem when I try to help one of my friends learn algebra. They are simple concepts, but he often acts like he doesn’t understand. I find with a bit of prodding that he does understand what I’m saying, just not how it relates to the “real world” or the problems he may need to solve.
When the company server is off, office workers do not lose internet access!
This one has to be explained many times to coworkers, I think it can be easy to misunderstand for non tech workers that have just learned that all those websites they see are in servers, therefore if there is a server in the office **that **is the internet…
Oh, and if you see things like Babylon Search or weird extra tool-bars in your browser you have malware, and yes, your downloads from innocuous looking sites usually tricked you into installing them.
The possessive form of “it” is “its” and “it’s” is a contraction of it is. Even on a message dedicated to fighting ignorance, we get that wrong about 80% of the time. That boggles me.
That may be true when you’re explaining something apropos of nothing (“so the other day I was writing a program and my for loop… what? Oh, a for loop is…”). But I’m talking about situations where they have some context, like taking a programming course or asking me to teach them programming. I always give context, and examples of when to use it, and so on, and they’ve always learned more simple things first, but it’s just… a roadblock. Like suddenly they can’t get it. Maybe it’s the syntax? Variable names are weird? Maybe I should spell out the exact line-by-line program a for loop is short for?
The majority of people get it, but some just… stop. They BSOD, they just can’t grasp the concept. For instance, once I gave my ex a lesson where I had a program that counted to 10 using a for loop
[spoiler]
in Java:
for(int i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {
system.out.Println(i)
}[/spoiler]
The first problem of her “homework” was just to make it count to 15
for(int i = 1; i <= 15; i++) {
system.out.Println(i)
}
Don’t worry if you don’t understand it, random poster, you’re coming into it with no context, but I explained everything in as minute of detail as she wanted, but there was just a roadblock, like she couldn’t get it. I think we spent 45 minutes trying examples, different syntax, different naming conventions. We eventually had to stop because it was causing her significant distress that she couldn’t get it. I felt really, really bad. (And for anyone thinking my ex was just trying to get woobie points or act dumb to be cute. Well… maybe, but I’ve had it happen with other people too).
shrug I think most people understand the difference just fine, what gets them is a lack of proofreading. Usually my problem with confusing constructions like its/it’s and there/their/they’re isn’t that I’m legitimately confused… it’s that I restructured the damn sentence so many times that I actually changed which one I was using and forgot to change the spelling.
Not so much understanding as being curious… about everything. People who, upon encountering a new item/phenomenon/idea/whatever say “oh. okay.” and don’t think anything more about it. What is it for, why is it here, how does it work? Nope, it’s just this thing that’s in their life now and that’s how it is so why bother trying to figure it out.
I simply do not understand that mindset (or lack thereof.)
I’m getting tired of people under 40 not having a basic understanding of how browsers and email programs work. Or just plain being afraid of them. The Internet has been around for like 20 years now - you should feel comfortable with it. It should not be above or beyond you.
If you can tell me what model car you drive, you can tell me what browser you use. I’ve had 3 people (who work in offices and use computers) say to me “what is a browser?” in the past few months. I am tired.
People who don’t get the concept that “Common Sense” doesn’t exist. I just tried to explain it to my daughters friend, I might have well been speaking hebrew with a japanese accent.
Knowing how to make a simple drawing of something, when the thing is right in front of you. I’m not talking about a realistic rendering with complex contours and shading. I’m talking about looking at something and making a reasonably recognizable drawing of what you see, rather than what you think something ***should ***look like. An example would be looking in a mirror and making a simple sketch of your face. Most people would put the eyes much higher than they really are, because they think that’s where they should be, totally ignoring what they’re actually seeing.
That comes about because of an unfortunate difference between ‘male + female’ and ‘neutral’:
he’s wrong (e.g. John is wrong)
she’s wrong (e.g. Jill is wrong)
it’s wrong (e.g. the machine is wrong)
So far so good…
his case is wet (e.g. John has a wet case)
her case is wet (e.g. Jill has a wet case)
its case is wet (e.g. the machine has a wet case)
Note how for male + female, the possessive form changes spelling.
Nobody is tempted to write ‘hi’s case is wet’.
But the letters ‘its’ sometimes need an apostrophe and sometimes don’t…
As a programmer, I’m very used to breaking problems down into subproblems and working on those. I understand that drawing and art is much the same, but for whatever reason, even though I can have a perfect vision of what I want in my head, I just can’t “decompose” it properly. I’ll make a curve here and a line there, but I can’t really tell until the picture is done that this curve is too steep or that line is way too high. And no matter how much I fiddle with it, it just never looks “right” to me.
I’m sure if I drew my face my features would be all over the place, but that’s not because I think it’s what I SHOULD look like, it’s because I’m completely terrible at judging distance and scale and such when it comes to drawing.
I find this incredibly odd when people my own age (24) don’t know anything about computers, but I’ve learned that there are some people who almost literally grow up without access to computers because their environment is impoverished enough and their schools are that shitty. I know a guy who’s taking basic biology for the first time in college. I took that in 9th grade and I had a “huh???” reaction when he told me they never taught that in his (NYC) high school.
But otherwise I agree. I think people between 40-70 should also have a basic grasp of computers and the internet. My parents and grandparents all do, what’s stopping other people (aside from my previously mentioned example)?
As another example, I don’t get people who don’t understand that they have to work for money. I had a friend who was always broke but would never go to work. She did not seem to grasp the connection. She tried to convince me to go on food stamps despite me being not broke.
After a decade as an English teacher, I still can’t understand how some people can’t tell the difference between a sentence and a fragment or a dependent clause. I teach 16 and 17 year old kids. There’s nothing I can say that hasn’t been said by 5 teachers before me. But there are some kids out there that would randomly guess if given this list and asked to pick out the complete sentence/thought:
The concept of not threadshitting seems to elude some people.
Ahem
I don’t understand people who don’t get rhythm, meter and emphasis in writing and speaking.
There was an advertisement on the radio a few months ago for guttering systems. It was in the format of a conversation between a husband and wife, something along the lines of:
*Husband: blah blah, getting the leaves cleaned out all the time last cost us so much money, could have had a holiday for that much.
Wife: Well you’d better get it fixed now, or the repair costs will cost us our next holiday.*
Now - where in Wife’s speech does the emphasis go? Anyone? Take your time…yes I’m sure you’ve got it. The word “next”. The emphasis goes on the new word/concept that you’re introducing. “Holidays” have been mentioned … what kind of holiday could the repairs cost you? Your next holiday. You could probably make a case for no emphasis, or some of the other words in her sentence - “repair”, for example. But what’s wrong, wrongity one-hundred percent WRONG is emphasising the word “holiday”. Gah! How is it possible for someone who’s getting paid to speak in public to have such a tin ear? Not to mention the person who produced the ad, the sound guys, the client who signed off on it…
I literally had to turn the radio off every time I heard it, it was so annoying. And don’t get me started on people who insert random conjunctions in poems where it stuffs around with the meter. Fingernails down the blackboard to me.
I’m not talking about stuff like perfect pitch or what weird chord names mean. I’m talking about just carrying a tune.
When someone sings out of tune, they aren’t singing the whole song a half step flat or anything nice like that; the notes are all off by different amounts. I can’t see how a person would be unable to hear the dissonance of their tune.
This happens in church when well-meaning folks want to sing in the choir but just can’t follow a tune at all.
Rhythm is another part of music that is sometimes just not part of a person’s skills. Most people can tap out a reasonable beat with their toe; some cannot.
I look at these gaps in people’s music sense as I see my own shortcomings: My eyes are not straight, so I cannot see depth (no 3D movies for me), and I have face blindness, to the point where I cannot recognize celebrities or other people in the public eye. Everybody else sees with perfect depth perception and recognizes faces they saw once in childhood for 30 seconds.
Phnord Prephect – I first read this post, then went on to read from you, “They’re evil undead Zombie pirates !” My initial thought was – OK, these people aren’t very imaginative; but that’s a bit of a harsh thing to say about them. Then I realised that the Zombie-pirates reference, was part of your “trademark quotation” underneath all posts that you make…
Being able to hear is not the same as being able to correct. Would you say that someone lacks a basic understanding of the guitar if they simply lack the finger dexterity to pick correctly?