Googling is one of those things that has so saturated my life that it now seems trivial. How did programmers operate before Google? Images flit before the mind…IRC, books, co-workers…but seriously, for someone who searches hourly, the mind boggles.

If you live with Google for a while, the controversy about the Web’s inclusivity–how can we sift the smart from the dumb?–is useless. When I was a stupid programmer, I found a lot of slightly-less-stupid blog posts, tutorial and articles that spoke to the stupid in me. When I become less stupid, other voices beckoned. The web grows with me.

Lately I’ve been wondering whether the web should preserve even more stupidity. When I really look at the hours I rack up programming, far too many of them are consumed with stupid mistakes, especially when starting fresh on a new kind of task, language or project. Google is still helpful then, but all too often I find myself grinding through some stupidity alone.

This is partly due to the fact that the set of smart, conceptual mistakes is a minor subset of all possible mistakes. “It’s” v. “Its” is downright hi-concept… “accommodate” v. “acommodate”, “accomodate”, “accommadate” is nearly random in comparison. Not even the web can preserve all the permutations of sheer error.

But there are other factors that inhibit the free flow of stupidity onto the web. One is, of course, shame. Who wants to be that guy, who, in middle of a series of comments on an exciting blog post, whines “But I can’t compile!!!!” I certainly don’t…and the web is definitely a better place for this reticence.

Another factor is interest. Some mistakes are inherently interesting. Correcting them leads one deeper into the mystery. Others, not so much. We identify them, we move on.

There is a cost to this. How many times have I sat typing into a input box, then, forced by articulation to confront my stupidity, seen right through it? And how many times have I then minimized the browser and gotten right back to work? And because I kept this “duh!” to myself, how many others have to sit typing into their input boxes…

So be it, you might say. Google is the instructress of the self-taught, and she alternate sterness with indulgence, occasionally forcing us to gut it out. But isn’t it better to spend those hours wrestling with onward-leading mistakes rather than infuriating trivia?

Clearly this is an interface problem. A stupidity-preserving interface would encourage people to post stupid problems and stupid solutions. Newbie forums are an excellent start. But less segregated solutions would entail giving forum or wiki members temporary anonymity, or allowing them to rank their own contributions or questions low priority or “stupid,” or allowing discussions to branch.

Tags: workflow · interface · learningNo Comments