Communication (with student comments in quotes)

I asked students to reflect about how communication with computers might be different from the rest of their communicative abilities with humans.

"I realized with computers there is no wiggle room at all. People have the ability to decipher and 'know what you mean' even if your syntax is not correct. Computers do not have this flexibility at all (maybe they do with AI and deep learning etc., but when talking directly to a computer using a code, this flexibility is not there)."

"Also, I definitely realized how important it is to take notes in your code to explain what's going on. While the computer may understand whats going on, it makes it easier for other people who don't code to know what is happening."

"I realize now how similar communication between computers and people are. How you use your tone, the inflection in your voice, and your words to communicate with people is petty and twitchy. We've just had a whole lot more experience with it than we have with computers. So I think that it really does boil down to practice - just like when we learn to speak and learn grammar - it's all about repeatedly going through the motions and needing to keep on trying."

"Communication with computers requires a lot more consideration for logic and for clarity. It has taught me to slow down and break things down into simpler, ordered pieces instead of a large, complicated whole when coding // it is interesting because you can't always go right for the end product you want, you have to think about all of the separate moving parts that will get you there."

"What I found most frustrating is the esoteric nature of warning messages. I wouldn't even care if I had to call warning() every time to see them, but it's annoying to have to copy&paste and google everything. It also makes me wary that I do not know enough about the function I am running..."

"Regarding communication, I like the specificity that coding teaches you. However, I think this skill does not translate into communicating with others/writing. For better and for worse, I feel when reporting results there is some degree of opaqueness, especially as I/we try to create a fake storyline to our data analyses."

"I have learned that computer communication is surprisingly straightforward once you get past the expectation of human ability to read into intentions. Despite being straightforward, however, it is also very complicated, because the sheer amount of communication that is not accounted for by that human ability is pretty immense. From that perspective, human communication is pretty amazing."

"While it is integral to have the right syntax and the right formulas, I have learned that there are several ways to get to the same results. Different lines of code and installed packages can get to the same end output. This has taught me that coding and communicating with others (especially computers) is not a straight line, but rather a series of options. It gets easier the more you practice."

Back to What you Learn, back to Longitudinal & Time Series Analysis, or back to In the Classroom.