Purpose of Programming

what is the purpose of programming? I mean less of what can be accomplished with programming, and more of a philosophical why, like what is the point?

What is the point of life or anything else you do?

To make things more efficient and automate people out of work.

>>21768 The world runs on machines, and has for centuries. What happens in the real world depends on how those machines act. To be able to control how those machines act is to have agency. A smith creating a wagon wheel, an engineer creating a gearbox, a weaver creating a loom punchcard, it's all the same - agency over the machine and thus over the world. When the machines' actions are directed by computers as in modern times, agency is determined by the ability to create and run programs on those machines.

>>21770 >>21771 How are these not "What you can do" and how are they "Why"????

>>21772 You're a fuarrrking moron.

>>21773 Not as much as you are, your post has 0 substance... What you can do with coding? >> create computers that have agency over machines Why to code? >> create computers that have agency over machines spot the difference? no. there is none.

From a purely objective standpoint, nothing has a purpose outside of the literal thing that it does. In the case of programming, its purpose is to allow you to write software to accomplish various tasks on a computer. It accomplishes a very important task, but I suspect the answer is a lot more mundane than the one you wanted.

can you clarify the question? it's difficult to answer "why" any technology exists without referring to the practical use of that technology. why do we have power tools? because they ease the process of wordworking. why did we develop the ability to make things out of wood? because it is a common, sturdy, versatile, resource that can be readily assembled into other objects that are useful to us for one reason or another (each with their own chain of "why" to explain their existence). in more abstract terms, the existence of any particular technology can usually be explained with "because it was the most convenient means that existed at the time of creation to do something which someone out there with money wanted done". programming is actually somewhat of an exceptional case in that its current function is very different from the purpose it was conceived for. programming languages existed, in a very literal sense, before computers. these languages were in turn developed for the purpose of "embedding" mathematical ideas within a purely logical framework, using a finite axiomatic context. it was a common conjecture around the turn of the century that mathematics was really just "syntax sugar" for predicate logic. interestingly, this conjecture was (mostly) false. computer science, as a field of study, came out of the abject failure of people like church, turing, hilbert, etc. to realize their true ambition: a kind of "theory of everything" for mathematics. they wanted to, very literally, "solve" and automate reason itself. in other words the purpose of computer science (as opposed to the industrial "software engineering") is and always has been AI. it's of course not so simple, but if you're looking for a simple answer that's the best one I can come up with. imo there is a compelling parallel between the phoenix-like deaths and rebirths of computer science and theoretical physics. both came shortly after a massive paradigm-shattering revelation which falsified a fundamental unifying conjecture in their respective fields. as a matter of fact, most scientific fields had their own postmodern revelation around this time; psychology is another notable example. theories of everything were very much in vogue during the height of modernism. at the time such a thing seemed to be right at their fingertips. but then the dream was not just yanked away but shattered, formally refuted, proved impossible with cold mathematical rigor... where do you even go from there? well, it turns out the street finds its own uses for things (as do the grant writers). in this case: the atom bomb, the internet. it's all very postmodern. we are actually having another go at "automating reason" in the form of deep learning, but the approach has nothing of the grand philosophical ambition of the computer science pioneers from a century ago. only enthusiasts and breathless media gawkers think this will lead to cracking the ultimate formula of human consciousness. that isn't the goal. instead, researchers see ways to approximate what human minds can do, without concerning themselves with the intractable question of what a human mind *is*. with the benefit of hindsight, they have realized that this is all we have ever been doing in the first place.

>>21768 >what is the purpose of programming? In terms of terror management theory and perhaps in an existentialist way, it's to pass the time. An occupation until you drop dead. If you ask a Marxist, the point is labour. It's always labour. To be more exact, programming provides the means for subsistence and the way to relate to the world (by manipulating and transforming the objects residing in it). The subsistence part resides in the transaction between a programmer who sells his expertise and the employer who buys the programmer's expertise. The person who buys the programmer's labour wants to speed up some particular process which - to make things easier, more (cost) efficient and faster - executes a computerized task that a person used to/could/can no longer do. I mean... you probably already know this part, so I need not go further.

>what is the purpose of programming? The phrasing assumes a universal purpose. There is none. Purpose is created. >what is the point? Short term? Reducing wasted time and accomplishing previously impossible/infeasible tasks. It aims to progress the capability of mankind. Extreme long term? All humans and their creations are destroyed, everything becomes pointless as t->infinity. >responding to obvious soykafp­ost please don't do that

We invented universal computers, machines that work on information. If you want to do something useful with those machines, you'll have to instruct them with a program. Is that necessary? Will we eventually have such computers that are conditioned instead of programmed? I don't know.

>>21774 This. obviously the reason to program is to accomplish what you can accomplish by doing it. But if you insist, what I like about programming is I see it in two ways, I like having words that affect real life objects for example in robotics, the idea of giving a machine a set of commands and have said set of commands move real life objects is amazing to me. The other one being that I am personally very anxious person and I'm bad at communicating, so coding is a way for me to "write down" my thoughts.

>>21768 The purpose of programming is to create an AI that can pass the Turing Test and win political argunents. That was the point all along, "Russian Bots". :/

>>21774 What can you do with coding? >> create computers that have agency over machines Why to code? To heighten skill, become better. It allows one to become a more successful member of society and life in general. That is why to code. There's an easy conclusion from >>21772 You're just a fuarrrking moron, as previously said.

>>21802 Ok since you lack the brain cells I'll explain, at least you had something to say... The whys you listed there are personal, they are also interchangeable with what you can accomplish. >>21786 got it right. The point of the post was to show OP how weird (to say the least) this question is, Think of it as some sort of a Socratic reasoning, but it looks like my interlocutors were not intelligent enough to hold the flow instead resorted to low effort name calling.

to make porky richer

>>21768 I just want to chime in and say that OP, you have presented an odd question because the answer to this question cannot be divorced from whatever meaning the individual thinks life has and so, indirectly, you're asking people what the meaning of life is. For some reason though, rather than see what people who were willing to express their opinions on this matter have to say (i.e. rather than look to the philosophers of the past such as the Greeks and the future philosophers who responded to those that came before them), you instead drop your question regarding life's meaning, indirectly, onto a bunch of people on an alternative imageboard. It's such a bizarre thing to do. If you wanted to find an answer to this question, you should've just gone to /lit/ and asked people for a guide on how to get into Philosophy. I guess I can try to answer the question anyway, although I've yet to make any formal study of Philosophy. I believe it was Stallman who argued that programming was neither an art nor a science but a craft. My understanding was that with programming, one engages in a kind of carpentry and the programs are the chairs and tables and whatnot. You can be quite decorative with your chair design but your chair derives its purpose from its function which is to support the weight of the one sitting on it. Likewise, there is room for self-expression in programming but a program has a purpose to fulfill, everything about the program is centered about this purpose. Answering the question then, the artistic aspect of programming gives a man an avenue to express himself meanwhile the scientific aspect of programming gives a man an avenue to bend reality to his will in a way he finds more pleasing. What is the purpose of self-expression? What is the purpose of bending reality to one's will? You need to leave this thread behind and start studying Philosophy. I don't know anything on the topic but I know enough to know that there'll be a multitude of answers to these questions. I wish you well.

>>21806 thanks anon, I've been studying philosophy on the side for awhile now. I understood what was being asked when making this thread, the purpose was to gauge the responses of different anons and see what could be learned from people who aren't as mired in academia and board culture as /lit/.

Programming ensures something can be written or translated to a language a computer understands and can use. Computer science is applied mathematics, and computers can be used to simulate/emulate reality, the universe, or any systems therein. The "why" amounts to whatever you want to do and why so, there is no why but what you make of it

>>21768 what is the purpose of speaking a language? I mean less of what can be accomplished with speaking a language, and more of a philosophical why, like what is the point?

>>21768 idk man just go become like the unibomber and u wont have to touch anything that uses code