[LAU] Look ma, I'm in the paper :)

[Louigi Verona]

Gentlemen,

Let me remind what we are discussing here and reformulate my thesis with
greater clarity.

The claim that I was responding to was this - the benefit of open source is
that it allows people to learn, whereas proprietary software does not allow
one to do so.

My counter-argument is that looking at complete code of someone's program
is not the only way to learn, and, in my current view, not even the most
effective.

To unwrap that, if I am writing a game and I need to know how to write a
javascript random number generator, I don't need to scan complete code of
someone else's program. I need only one part - the random number generator
algorithm.

I do not argue against the notion that studying someone else's complete
code is very useful. I am saying that this is not necessarily the only or
even main way. There are many other ways to learn.

And even if we are often learning by looking at parts of someone's code,
this program does not have to be open source. I personally have learned to
program by looking at proprietary code while working in a company and then
learning things by asking questions on forums, using functions, submitted
by people and adopted from their usually proprietary software. Only once in
my web development career did I have to literally go through the whole code
of a phpBB forum. But by that time I already knew how to code.


In other words, I am not arguing that looking at someone's code is
unnecessary, I am arguing that having complete code of a program is usually
not required to learn to code. It is good sometimes, perhaps it is very
useful, but this is not necessary. Many people learn to program without
being exposed to a complete open source project.

Another important point is that when you are working in a company, other
people's code is not the only thing that teaches you. Often, there are also
people in the company who will actually walk you though the code. Just
having the code available is not necessarily helpful.


How can my argument be defeated? With evidence. It would be interesting to
see stats on major contributions to learning to code. If this data
contradicts my argument - I would definitely follow the evidence.

But using "background knowledge" about the world, it seems to me that most
people know little about open source and are unlikely to learn by opening a
program they like and start reading through the code.

I could be wrong and maybe majority of people do exactly that. but I am not
aware of any such stats, neither am I aware of how this could help a novice
learn to code. I had to change things in a complex C++ program written by
one of my science professors. It did not teach me anything. But it would be
wrong, of course, to make generalizations based solely on my own experience.

 An interesting thread
<https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-best-ways-to-learn-programming>
at Quora on how people learn to code and advices people give. So far I see
no advice like "open an open source program and look at its code".



And, finally, to address Rui's point:

"unless you're the creator of the language, which i'm sure very few
humans can brag on that, you always  have to look into someone's "code",
even before thinking on developing on it--any language, any code,
lexical, grammar, syntax, or style, be that an idiom, dialect or just
accent."

I agree that you have to look at someone's code. But, using your language
analogy, I don't think that I can learn Spanish by opening someone's book
and trying to read through it. I would actually start with a textbook and
simplistic texts.

So, I am not arguing against not looking at anyone's code. I am saying that
you don't need complete open source programs for that and if a person is
never once exposed to any open source "free" software projects, he has
dozens of methods to learn to code and I, in fact, argue that looking at
open source projects is not the most common way of doing it. Remember, I am
arguing against the fact that "free" software is so good, because it is
(presumably) the only/best way to learn.

I argue it is *a* way to learn. And it is not a strong argument to justify
GPL software as a necessary thing.

And, finally, people rarely "know a programming language". You still know
only parts of it and only certain applications. Even if you know a lot
about C++, it is applied differently to graphics, it is applied differently
to GUI, differently to sound, differently to text, compression, databases,
etc. Each application requires specialized knowledge.







On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 10:07 PM, Rui Nuno Capela <rncbc at rncbc.org> wrote:

> On 11/02/2016 08:26 PM, Louigi Verona wrote:
> > Rui, let me, taking your experience into account, but at the same time
> > not discarding mine, reformulate my previous statement:
> >
> > Studying someone's code is not the ONLY way to educate yourself.
> >
>
> yeah, maybe not the only way to do it wrong, that's for certain
>
> may i ask you how do you ever learn to speak and understand the least of
> any language at all? don't you have to hear (thus look into code for
> that matter) and reproduce even though a mockup at first?
>
> unless you're the creator of the language, which i'm sure very few
> humans can brag on that, you always  have to look into someone's "code",
> even before thinking on developing on it--any language, any code,
> lexical, grammar, syntax, or style, be that an idiom, dialect or just
> accent.
>
> cheers
> --
> rncbc aka. Rui Nuno Capela
>



-- 
Louigi Verona
http://www.louigiverona.com/
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