Found in 2 comments on Hacker News
zby · 2022-01-18 · Original thread
In 'Why we talk' (https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Talk-Evolutionary-Evolution/dp...) Dessalles arguments that we have two modes of talking - the first one is visual and probabilistic, the second one is topological - that is concerned about zero one questions - like if something is inside or outside of something. The first one is about imagining situations and judging their salience (or improbability). The second is about argumenting - simplifying the information so that you can 'proove' stuff. The point is that visuals are too rich and there can be too many ways to imagine things - so it is hard to convince someone that a particular scene is wrong or right. When you simplify things to the topological level of question if something is inside something or outside - then you can use inference to arrive at some logical conclusions, with steps so obvious that it is hard to argument against them.

Programming is mostly about logic - that is why it is hard to visualise. I think this is the problem with 'visual programming languages' (like https://enso.org/ - which, disclosure, is in my investmet porfolio) - and also here. This is kind of surprising - because we naturally expect the visuals to be as rich as the logic. But we need to carefully think about what is complementary here.

zby · 2021-12-24 · Original thread
https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Talk-Evolutionary-Evolution/dp...

It goes a bit slow and with too much details about hypotheses that are eventually rejected but really interesting insights into language. Relevant to computer languages too probably.

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