My partner Fiona is currently teaching herself a bit of programming – she’s blogged about it here – and it’s gotten me thinking about how valuable this can be. No so much the “being able to write a computer program”, although that is important stuff. I’m more interested in the benefits of understanding how programming works, what it is and what it isn’t. Demystifying something which, rightly or wrongly, is seen as magic by mortals, druids casting runes for the modern age. I’m referencing Douglas Rushkoff’s Program or be programmed here but while that’s useful it’s still a bit rarified.
I asked around for examples of programming that people do as part of their routine, whether on their computers or in their homes. The one I gave was iTunes Smart Playlists which gives a sense of what I mean by programming – setting some rules in place that automate a process. For example, I have a playlist which feeds my iPhone with music that matches the following criteria:
- Unplayed in the last two months (I want to hear new music)
- Is under 8 minutes long (I want short songs)
- Is rated higher than *** (Stuff I’ve decided is good)
I then limit it to a list of 2gb’s worth. Whenever I sync my phone it removes the stuff I’ve played and replaces it with relatively unheard music. That’s programming.
Here’s some more from things people suggested:
- Recording a TV show when you’re out (VCR/Sky+/etc).
- Filtering email into a folder based on criteria.
- Address book sorting, Facebook lists and other sorting of contacts.
- Alarm clocks.
- Central heating.
- Cooker / microwave timer.
- Following a recipe.
- Gardening.
- Running machines at the gym.
- Washing machines.
- Excel spreadsheets.
- Mail-merge in word processing.
- Satnav.
Any more ideas?
Thanks to Aardvark, Adrian Short, Clare White, Jon Bounds, Dave Harte, Emmatorialgirl, Jez Higgins, Rachel Burns, Davel, Andy Cowley, James Boxiii and anyone I missed.
Operating a model (or real) railway. Every point (or switch if you’re American) is a decision point.
Off the tangent , I know, but I am filter (program?) my conversations with people and I notice they do to. Within an hour of gettng up, I will filter out all sentences from others so leaving only sentences that:
1. Exclude subclauses (I like simple sentences )
2. Are less than 8 words long (I like short sentences)
3. Are not emotional challenging (I can’t handle emotional tension)
This is not voluntary: brain just can’t process these things forst thing. Therefore, my brain is automatically programmed for morning conversations. I add to this some voluntary programming filters to avoid things I don’t enjoy and zoom in on the enjoyables, such as:
1. sport – filter out
2. shoes – filter in
3. racist comments – filter out
4. George Clooney – filter in
I know this isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, but since I was recently introduced to the concept of ‘filtering’ by a ‘house mate’ (i.e. he don’t listen when a woman talks about (fill in the blank), I find the connection interesting!