That’s a good point. Almost anyone can be a decent driver after 100 hours of practice. Almost everyone is a terrible programmer after 100 hours of practice. And I suspect that the number of bugs per 1000 LOC does not tend to zero even after decades of programming, there is still some residual level left, though dependent on the person, problem, programming language and framework. I wonder what the difference is. Is this because, unlike driving, programming cannot be made automatic (i.e. pushed wholly into the System 1)? If so, why not?
I think it’s partly that code is strictly interpreted and thus small errors can have arbitrarily severe effects, whereas things like driving are analog and small deviations from optimal steering etc don’t tend to matter so much. Still, cars crash too and many people get into accidents even if they aren’t always fatal.
A person’s number of driving errors doesn’t tend to zero either. People are rarely rigorously assessed for their rate of errors in driving, but that doesn’t mean their error rates don’t exist.
That’s a good point. Almost anyone can be a decent driver after 100 hours of practice. Almost everyone is a terrible programmer after 100 hours of practice. And I suspect that the number of bugs per 1000 LOC does not tend to zero even after decades of programming, there is still some residual level left, though dependent on the person, problem, programming language and framework. I wonder what the difference is. Is this because, unlike driving, programming cannot be made automatic (i.e. pushed wholly into the System 1)? If so, why not?
EDIT: commented on this separately.
I think it’s partly that code is strictly interpreted and thus small errors can have arbitrarily severe effects, whereas things like driving are analog and small deviations from optimal steering etc don’t tend to matter so much. Still, cars crash too and many people get into accidents even if they aren’t always fatal.
A person’s number of driving errors doesn’t tend to zero either. People are rarely rigorously assessed for their rate of errors in driving, but that doesn’t mean their error rates don’t exist.