here's a take that'll please no one: the belief that computers are difficult to use—especially foss and tools related to programming—is mostly constructed by politics and marketing, not by any inherent characteristics of the software. reasoning: (a) people master very complicated and user-hostile processes *all the time*. knitting, driving a car on the interstate, playing a musical instrument, being a baseball fan, using the subway—all just as complicated imo as (e.g.) learning the command line
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@bitsavers i don't know. i don't drive, but i do hire a rideshare maybe a half dozen times a year as needed, and i feel like every year i have to learn the newfangled way to *open and close the car doors*. i know i wouldn't be able to figure out how to, like, turn on the parking brake or whatever in a tesla with a touch screen
(b) this is totally anecdotal, but as someone who has been teaching computer programming to adults for ~20yrs or so, the biggest obstacle that students face is not that the material is difficult (even when it *is* difficult), but that students are *culturally predisposed to a belief that they're not smart enough to program*, which acts as a permission structure for giving up. (this is peculiar, because no one having trouble in a knitting class thinks "i guess i'm not smart enough to knit")
(c) programmers are predisposed to convincing others that programming is too complicated for "normal people" as a means of job security and achieving social status; computer manufacturers and their software-making friends are predisposed to a marketing message that states: computers are too difficult for normal people, so buy this new machine/software, which is finally the computer/software that normal people can use! together both sides form a kind of mutual ratchet imo
(the trope of the "computer nerd" in media is such an effective embodiment of both sides of this rhetoric that its prevalence almost seems like a conspiracy imo)
anyway, whenever someone says something like "LLMs have finally made programming accessible to normal people!" I try to remember that the Silicon And Fossil Fuel Pyramid Scheme Industry has spent literally hundreds billions of dollars in an effort to convince you that computers were *already difficult to use* (a grift that computer programmers are largely in on!) and to politicize LLMs as being "easy to use" in contrast
@aparrish
"People master very complicated and user-hostile processes *all the time*"
As someone who has been programming for 50 years, I learned how to drive ONCE. I also learned woodworking ONCE.
That is absolutely untrue for programming.