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Explain coding

Explain coding
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    1. We are now on the second half of the chessboard with computing power: things are starting to get weird

    I forget where I originally read this but I think about it often. It refers to Gordon Moore's law, stated in 1965, where he predicted that the number of transistors on a chip would double every 18 months. You can interpret that to mean computing power, which has held.

    This means that for almost 60 years the total computing power of the world has been exponentially growing: doubling the total computing capacity of the world every year and a half.

    So after 48 years of this cycle in about 2013 we got 32 iterations (the first half of the chessboard). 2^32 meant that computing power was about 2 billion times greater than in 1965. Moving forward to 2023 we have had about 6 more cycles on the second half of the chessboard: 2^38 or about 275 billion times greater than 1965 and over 135 times greater than just 10 years ago.

    Suppose Moore's law continues to hold until about 2060. Computing power would be 2^64 (18 billion-billion times!) greater than in 1965. Within many of our lifetimes computing power will be 67 million times greater than today!

    This advancement helps explain why ChatGPT 4 was released just months after chatGPT 3 and computers can make photo-realistic images in seconds. It also foretells that the metaverse may be closer than we imagine.

    Every year going forward things will be possible using code and electronic systems that were difficult to imagine 10 years ago. It costs me less to publish a 100-page book on Amazon and have them print it and deliver it to my door than it does to print it out at my desk: and it looks better too!

    2. Coding is structured problem solving

    3. Coding will not be replaced with AI but…

    coders that master AI will be at least ten times as productive as those that don't

    4. Code is built on all the code that came before

    For example you don't need to write raw email headers and send it manually: most languages have libraries and functions so that you just need to write something like mail($to, $subjrct, $message);

    This means that any application can easily include the ability to send someone an emai: what else can you make?

    5. “Code is poetry” used to be an expression

    It is pretty pretentious but there is truth there. There are many ways to solve the same problem .

    6. Code that is efficient can literally be 1,000,000 times faster than inefficient code that does the same thing

    This is how "the big guys" can handle billions of messages every hour.

    7. Coding is like practicing a craft: like woodworking or cooking

    The output is usually useful but does not need to be. Sometimes the code required will be a peanut butter sandwich and other times a 10 course meal.

    8. Coding requires creative thought

    You are working with invisible information and need to create structures and interfaces to interact with it.

    9. You spend a lot more time reading and thinking than typing

    Sometimes you can work for 6 hours and wind up changing a single word to fix a bug.

    10. You write code to be read by other people

    The computer compiles it into something else.

    this is where personal style can come through

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