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Similarly, programming is also a precise language of communication. Initially, we focused on direct machine behavior but every abstraction above the hardware (including assembly) has been to make that behavior legible to humans.

Developed notations and shared procedural abstractions have made thinking about computation more intentionally human and source control has established a protocol for conversing with other humans in the language of a program and changes to that program.

The moment just now feels like a neglecting of the idea of communication being central. If the program is a compile target but not sufficiently legible or if the conversation moves too quickly for us to keep up then we retain the effects of computation but loose its meaning as communication. We loose the understanding and the ability to develop and evolve further shared abstractions.

Open source programs could be more like motivated explanations of computation. For open source to survive, maybe we should start to make the distinction between free product distribution and programming as communication and community building.

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People often hate math because it was not explained to them correctly, usually by people who are good mathematicians but know close to nothing about teaching.

It was so infuriating to see everyone in the class absolutely fail on a specific subject and the "teacher" assumed that everyone must be stupid then. No self reflection, no questioning himself why he is not getting gaussian distribution in marks, just straight Fs.

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> usually by people who are good mathematicians but know close to nothing about teaching.

I higly doubt that. Maybe in university level courses. Most people’s only experience with mathematics is an elementary or high school teacher who were probably themselves at best mediocre at the subject. Simply because of selection factors. Those who are good at math are encouraged to go into STEM. There will be of course exceptions everywhere, but that is not what “usually” happens.

And thats just about being good at maths the school subject, which is distinct from being “ good mathematicians” the science / research topic. Mathematicians are few and far between, simply because it is a specialist subject. There just aren’t enough of them to go around for them to be the formative experience around math for most people.

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Another response to math that makes me sad: "I must be too stupid to understand this," "my brain is too small for this," etc. Different people say it for different reasons, but it's almost always in response to a hand-wavey explanation that doesn't makes sense to anyone not already in the know. Math is so much more about humility and skepticism than it is prodigy.
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a good teacher remembers the journey, not just the destination.

socratic method exists. almost none follows it.

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>socratic method exists. almost none follows it.

I have a hatred for people who think they can use this method.

If used incorrectly which it is a great percentage of the time it confuses the student. The person employing the socratic method must actually know the answer and where the student is in their mind. Failure on either account makes it pointless.

Ask anyone unfortunate enough to ask for help on IRC

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