| > Engineers seem to have a certain predilection to talk over people That's overly general: a lot of programmers may be socially inept, but it's neither necessary nor sufficient. Both the examples from above are pretty anti-social, but they also don't happen to have these skills. Likewise, I know some very good programmers who are also good at requirements gathering and collecting domain knowledge, which entails learning from experts and listening to them. > The tools we've created for computing are heavily dependent on symbolic logic. The whole notion of computers, for better or worse, depends on symbolic logic. You'll have a hell of a time building a microprocessor whose instruction set is paintings or dance moves. The best case is that we build an interface from symbolic logic to this new, more approachable paradigm. > They make amazing interactive art pieces. How much logic can you put in an interactive art project? Can it model anything in the real world? The biggest problem with other paradigms is density: if you want to program via something other than symbolic logic, get ready for incredible fatigue as you try to turn a 10K LOC program into a 500MP painting. Or an 18 hour long dance. I guess I should clarify: I don't think non-programmers are lesser beings, or that they can't model anything in their heads. But for the sake of programming, the only thing that matters is if you can model a computer. If you have other types of intelligence, that's fine, just know you're going to have a tough go of it when it comes to understanding the code you write. |