Felienne: Sometimes I'm angry. That might be clear. I'm angry with programming for being so selfish, but sometimes I'm also like, but my good friends you don't know what you're missing, sex is great, but have you ever made something for someone that they really, really like using?

Jared: Hey folks. Welcome back to Elm Town. I'm your host Jared M Smith. We'll be visiting with Felienne Hermans today.

[00:00:26] Sponsored by Logistically

Jared: But first, let's talk about our sponsor, Logistically. At Logistically, we make intuitive software to help logistics teams make better decisions and improve efficiency.

We build the front end for all new features in Elm. If you're interested in our mission and enjoy writing Elm, please drop us a line Elm town@logisticallyinc.com. I'll put a link in the show notes.

[00:00:48] Introducing Felienne Hermans

Jared: Now, Felienne. Felienne is a professor of Computer Science Education at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She also works as a high school CS teacher one day a week at Lyceum Kralingen in the Codasium program. Felienne is the creator of the Hedy programming language, a gradual and multilingual programming language designed for teaching.

She's the author of The Programmer's Brain, a book that helps programmers understand how their brains work and how to use it more effectively. In 2021, Felienne was awarded the Dutch Prize for ICT research. She also has a weekly column on BNR, a Dutch radio station. Felienne gave the talk "How to teach programming (and other things?)" At Strange Loop 2019, where I first discovered her work.

She recently published the paper, "A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design", coauthored with Ari Schlesinger. As discussed in Elm Town 59 – Elm Camp with Katja Mordaunt. Felienne Worked with Katja on Code Reading Club. Felienne, welcome to Elm Town.

Felienne: Very nice to be here. Thanks for the invite.

Jared: So I wanted to start out with this by talking about my series of learning teaching. And I've come to have this word to describe it as wonder. And by that I mean a curiosity of asking why. And with that I have a couple of things. One of them just happened to be this morning I was doing, I do this daily little ritual of, uh, reading a little passage from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman and then journaling.

And one of them, uh, or this one today in particular, made me think about something from The Programmer's Brain. So lemme start with the, the quote from that, from The Daily Stoic, which is quote, "When it comes to money where we feel our clear interest, we have an entire art where the tester uses many means to discover the worth. But when it comes to our own ruling principle, we yawn and doze off accepting any appearance that flashes by without counting the cost. " This is from Epictetus, uh, from Discourses, 1.20.8 to 11. And just a little bit of context about Epictetus, um, was a, I, I don't know the time period, but a long time ago, um, a, a slave who later , became a, um, sort of well known for teaching Stoicism.

And that made me think about this passage from chapter seven, page 119 of The Programmer's Brain you wrote, quote, "The fact that knowledge you have already learned needs to be changed in your long-term memory makes conceptual change learning harder than regular learning. This is why misconceptions can linger for a very long time.

Simply being presented with information on why your thinking is wrong often does not help or does not help enough." So with that kind of setting the, the tone here, what do you think are the, the costs of misconceptions and, and I'm thinking about this from a sort of feminist lens, and you can kind of take that wherever you wanna go there.

[00:04:09] The costs of misconceptions

Felienne: Yeah. F Firstly, I was just. Appreciating. I think this was the first time someone read a line from my book to me. So it's just so weird because it sounded really like me, but also it was your voice. So it's just like I am, I'm just experiencing this moment. It's still a mystery to me. Right. I wrote this book mainly in Covid, so alone in, in my outdoor office.

And now I know people hold it, they, they bring it to me. They're like, oh, this is your book. It is still amazing that those things I wrote in the pandemic are now in your hands, like literally. So I just wanna take a moment of, ah, no, I am having feelings and they're great feelings. Um. But I think, yeah, changing your mind is so hard.

Um, because if you have to change your mind, you have to disagree with, with your prior self. Right? And maybe this was something you were really, really attached to, right? Maybe your favorite programming language, I don't know, it was Pascal or something. It was, Pascal was one of my favorite language when I was younger.

And then at one point you sort of have to reckon with the fact, oh, well there are other languages that are maybe better in a certain way. And then that means that your prior self is also changing. And then maybe switching programming languages is so for some people already, something they're very, very attached to.

Uh, but, but realizing sort of you were wrong, um, also means that you were a person that was wrong. And that's just something that's really, really painful. And then you have to be in this new mindset of, okay, now I believe in new thing. Um, do you know Science Mike?

Jared: No, I don't think so.

Felienne: we can probably put him in the show notes. Um, , He is someone that grew up with a religious background, believing certain things, and then he became really interested in science and now he's doing science podcasts. And one thing he says about making that switch from someone that believes certain things in a religious way, growing up like that, to someone who sort of believes in science, whatever that means, he says it is like you have to find a new group of people to belong to.

And I thought that was so, so nice and so, so beautiful that if you have to change your mind, you have to find new people that are your tribe and specifically if you grow up in a certain community. This is also why Science Mike, I think, resonates so much with me. If you grow up in a certain community, but no one is like you, then who's your new tribe?

Right. So when I was growing up, and I mean until when one of my thirties computer science was, was mo mostly men, maybe it still is mostly men. So I couldn't really hang out with other women in computer science because there just weren't so many. So it really took me a long time with respect to my feminism and, and the role that my feminism has in the computer science space to find people to, to feminism with.

Right? Because it's really hard to do with dudes. Not that there aren't of course feminist men, but they don't have my lived experience where in, in dozens of occasions I was one of the few women. In a room, at a conference, in a meeting. Right. So it, it's very, it was very hard and, and really I was so, so happy that I ran into Ari, who I wrote the paper with, because that was someone like, oh, now I have someone to belong to or to belong with in this journey.

And that was, that was very important. And I think that was an enabler, to come back to your question, uh, an enabler of, for me, a conceptual change from, I don't know why everything is so hard. Like, oh, now I know why everything is so hard.

Jared: Yeah, that's really good. I wrote down the word tribe and then you said it, so I think that's, that's a great thing to, to kind of jump off with there. And I think that resonates with me from, you talked about programming languages and you know, believing that one is, you know, kind of where your, of course it's what you work in, but maybe it's kind of like where you are, uh, like you're aligned with it, right?

Like you, your beliefs sort of align with the, the beliefs of that language and the sort of like the values around that language. And that of, for me was, before I came to Elm, was JavaScript. And I had this sense, I, I worked in other languages, but then I came to JavaScript and I was like, okay. You know, I, I can get in with this.

And for whatever reason I enjoyed it. I think mostly because I could use it on the front end and get that immediate feedback. And then at some point I discovered Elm and I went to a conference and I met the people and they were so open and so kind and, uh, and inclusive and diverse. And it was just a really pleasant experience.

And I that I didn't really know much about the language when I went. I knew that I liked the properties of it, but I didn't know that I would be able to use it in a production setting, you know, use it for work. Um, now fast forward seven, eight years later, I mean, I, I do get to use it, um, every day for work, so I'm very thankful for that.

But yeah, it just, it, it makes me feel like I had to overcome some, some bit of self, like this ego, I guess, of, of, of like how I looked at myself and, and then also. And I, I probably didn't think about it in these terms at the time, but within the context of the system, you know, the values of that system that I was working in.

So yeah, I, I like that a lot. With that in mind, I, I just shared a little bit about sort of the, my history and, and coming from different languages.

[00:09:51] Journey to computer science

Jared: Would you talk a little bit about sort of your journey, how you got started in computer science, sort of what was your spark? Um, and this, uh, question comes a bit from Benjamin de Vries.

Um, he helped, uh, helped me come up with this idea, and he said, um, what sparked your initial interest and what challenges and achievements did, did you have along the way? And then sort of my phrasing is what, so social or systemic blockers, did you face sort of feminist lenses, uh, to view those challenges?

Felienne: Yeah, that's a great question. So, sadly, this is all lost to history, um, because I don't know how I started programming. It is so long ago that I don't really remember a time before programming. Uh, so what my parents could puzzle together is that probably when I was around six, we had a computer in the house.

Uh, my dad had his own company that he was just running from the house. Um, and he, he's not alive anymore. Uh, but what we sort of remember is that people told him then computers are the future, Frans, you need a computer, uh, for your business. Uh, so he was sort of, um, coerced into buying one, but we, we think he never used it in his entire life really to do much for his job.

Maybe write letters, but he could already, already write letters before. But as soon as we had this computer in the house, I was just hooked. And in the beginning I did the silliest things like just print the alphabet in different forms. This was already enjoyable. Have like a paint, I don't think it was literally Microsoft Paint, but a paint like program, um, where you could sort of draw things.

But of course it wasn't, um, a GUI yet. There was no windows. This was in the DOS times, but you could sort of make drawings and this was already fun, magical. It was this magical machine for creation. And I think that's mostly what, what appealed to me. And of course, at one point, computer games started circling around on floppy discs and then you would just exchange them with your friends.

And then we figured out a game is made by code and then you can open it and then you can look at the codes. One game that I had for school, many people my age probably know this gorillas dot BAS like from Basic. Um, and it was like a gorilla and it threw a banana and then a banana exploded. That was the game.

Um, and you could open the code, you could change things, and then the game would change. And there was this magical layer of creation. And I like creating many things. I like making clothing, I like drawing. So this was just for me, another way of making stuff. And I thought, oh. Look at all the possibilities that this machine allows me to create.

And so this was all, when I was still in elementary school, so before I was 12, and then I went to high school and I was, I think very, very lucky that my high school had a computer club. I think had I gone to a different high school that didn't have a computer club, my life would've been different. But this computer club, every Thursday in lunch break, all the computer kids from the school would go to the, of course, the math teacher's classroom.

And we would do computer stuff there. And, and some of it was just playing games and exchanging games and burning music on CDs. Uh, if you're in your forties, you know what that means. If you're like younger, you're like, what is burning music on the CD? What does it mean? Um, but also some of the kids were also into programming, so, so it was.

Not really a programming club, but it was. Um, but as a teenager, I also, I still liked many things, so I also liked philosophy. I was in the school band. Uh, I was in the theater club, so I liked many things. Um, and I was in doubt for a very long time. What would I do? But then my working class mom said, well, honey, you can do theater and philosophy on Saturday and have a nice career with a good salary as a programmer, and the opposite will be harder to achieve, which is, it's sad that we live in a capitalist system, but of course, also she was not wrong.

Right? My, my financial situation was probably very different had I chosen theater or philosophy. Uh, but I did, did think that that financial motive, which wasn't necessarily my own financial motive, I didn't really understand that super well when I was 18. Um, that did ultimately sort of push me or, or guide me towards computer science.

Jared: So you, you had this experience that you described as magical, and it, it brings me back to that word of wonder and this and this sense that what brought you in was the ability that not only could you interact, but you could change the way that it worked.

[00:14:33] Programming culture: challenges and creativity

Felienne: Yeah, and I think also in your previous question was this, this feminist lens that I didn't really answer. I'm realizing now, but, but I can now do that from that perspective. So I think when I started to study computer science as an undergrad and then a masters and a PhD, I don't think that creation was that big of a part of the deal.

Uh, because if you study computer science, you don't do that much creation. Uh, you do some programming, but the programming, I didn't see this when I was doing it right. I was super excited about programming, so I was having a great time. But what was the programming? Oh, let's print all the prime numbers.

Let's reverse a links list. Let's yours text file, and you have to find the largest alphabetically ordered substring in this letter soup. And I didn't think of it then. I just thought, oh, well I want to be a programmer. This is what you have to do. I absolutely didn't hate the type of things I was doing, so I don't wanna unfairly radical and say, oh, it was super shit.

It wasn't shit. I was having a good time. But looking at it now, what brought me in computing wasn't what I was presented with while I was in it. And over time, the system of, of power, so to say, or at least the vibe, as kids would say now, the vibe of being a programmer wasn't about creation, and certainly it wasn't about creating things that other people like.

So if you make a drawing, you can make something for yourself, but usually it's for other people. And specifically if you make clothing, you make clothing for yourself, but you might also give it to other people. So for me, always creation has this gift in it that I want to create something partly for me, of course, but also partly for other people.

And I see now that what computer science is also, if you're a professional programmer, not just in your studies, is much more about what you find enjoyable about the challenge. And this is also what I write in the feminism paper that Dijkstra, my fellow Dutch person, famous computer scientist from from the Netherlands, Netherlands, he says, um, Mathematicians will find challenge in computer science. And so it is challenging, and I think that is so much part of our culture. Maybe less so the Elm culture, but of course more so the culture of other programming languages where ultimately, of course, not all programmers always, ever, right?

But a lot of programmers are in it for them because they know this will be fun and challenging. And then maybe a little bit like I was in it, it's a good career, but I don't think many programmers are in programming because they like creating for other people. They like the creation and in the way that you might solve a puzzle, right?

Or that you might do a, um, a crossword, a puzzle like this or, or an actual puzzle that you put together or a Rubik's cube that they like the challenge. And then it's finished. And then it's not something you give to someone. It's not like you finish a crossword and then you're like, Hey Jared, look what I made for you.

Right. So it's much more about the challenge for you than about the creation process. So, so then lately I've also, I feel that I'm getting annoyed if people say, oh, programming is so creative. Like, no, you literally have to follow the rules that the programming language designer put in. Maybe if you make your own programming language.

But even then that there, there's, there is creativity, but it's so constrained and it's not creativity in the sense that you are creating a gift for someone. And this is something I was just telling Ari, the co-author of the paper the other day, that I feel a bit like Science Mike, that I've been in a cult for 20 years and I'm now sort of getting out and I'm like, why?

Like. Why did I agree with that? Why did I let all that creative spark that I had as a teenager, it sort of just withered away because I was hanging out in this culture where all the other students and the professors and everyone in the profession were like, yeah, this is a fun puzzle. Like, but wait, wait.

Now I realize I don't, I don't care about that. I don't hate it. Like I don't hate reading a complicated knitting pattern, but I don't like reading the pattern for itself. I like the picture that's next to the pattern that says, this is the sweater you'll have. And then the challenge is a necessary step.

But it's not that If I figured out the complicated pattern, I'm like, now I'm intellectually satisfied. No, I still want the sweater,

Jared: Right. Yeah. This

Felienne: if that makes sense.

Jared: Yeah, it does. I think about this from the perspective of, you said. Different ways and like reasons for creating. And it makes me think about creation with, in one regard, the goal is to complete a challenge or to dominate something, right? It's like to be, you know, complete this and say, I've made it to the top of

Felienne: Yeah, I won.

Jared: I won. And the other purpose, a gift is a form of communication. Or even if you're wearing the own, your own clothes, you are still communicating something with that. So yeah, I, I definitely see that. Um, see that difference there and, and how, and, and actually it makes me think of an episo— or actually a couple of episodes of Elm Town, one before I was the host,

Um, but both were with Martin Stewart, who he would make Elm programs as gifts, uh, for folks. And that, that just, yeah, popped into my head is something that, um,

Felienne: Oh, that's so cool. I should totally listen to it. Like, do you remember an example of a thing he made as a gift?

Jared: Um, he made something with, for some friends for Christmas, I believe. Um, and then, and then a game for his sister, I believe. Um, and I don't remember the name of the game, but yeah. Um, just, yeah, really interesting. And then, um, after hearing that, I ended up making one, um, one Elm app as a gift, a Christmas gift.

It was one of those like friends giving things

and it was like a compilation of local music, but it was all ones that you could find, um, like streaming either on YouTube or, you know, SoundCloud or something like that. Um, as, as a gift. And so, you know, whoever got me as got to to see that website with the local music.

So

Felienne: Oh, that's wonderful. But that's also so different from something like Advent of Code or, um, oh yeah, you should have your own hobby project, right? But it's never a hobby project in that sense. It's, it's, oh, and then you're learning a new language that you don't know, and then you know the thing, and then you can feel really proud of yourself.

Jared: Yeah,

[00:21:36] Bias and building a multi-lingual programming language

Jared: With this in mind, kind of thinking about creation and, and the different purposes of it and programming, um, what's the importance of understanding systemic biases in quantitative over qualitative work?

Felienne: Yeah, so bias is so hard to capture. I what, what does bias mean? but I think what I learned from. From, from developing Hedy mainly. Uh, so it's a programming language made for kids. And at one point I asked a bunch of 12 year olds, how shall I change this, right? If, if you had the power to make one change, what you would you do?

And these were Dutch high schoolers. Um, and at that point we didn't have localization yet, so we had localization of the ui. And so you could click a button and it would say, uh, throw the code out instead of run the code in Dutch. Um, but the language itself, the keywords were not localized. So the kids said, why don't you make it in Dutch?

And this wasn't the big sample size, right? I didn't ask a thousand kids. I asked, I don't even remember, let's say 50 kids. So I wasn't aiming for a good fair sample, I was just interested in a broad variety of opinions. So this kid said, make it in Dutch. And then that was, so that was uncovering such an interesting bias because making the keywords. English wasn't a decision. I hadn't sat down and thought, oh, do I make it in Dutch? Do I make it in English? I hadn't even thought of it. I just, just programming languages are in English, it's just the thing you do. So that was a bias, but I hadn't even seen it as a bias. And I think maybe that's the more interesting bias. Just really

Finding something you didn't think of, you didn't think of. And of course this is once we started to implement Hedy in Dutch, we got Spanish and French and German. We got all those extra languages in and people got so excited, so much more excited about Hedy than they were before. Only then, or maybe I should say only now because I'm still realizing it more and more, I understood the value, but this was just one child in, in a small study, so it doesn't matter, right? This could also just be an outlier if, if you think of it's important to collect a lot of data and, and go on that. And I'm of course not saying you should never collect data, but sometimes one sentence you hear or read just changed the course of your life. And there was just this one boy, and, and he was also a bit smug about it.

And because he was like, so I said, why? Right? He said, Well, you made it, you made it like this, you can make it different. And it was just so good. And it was, it was really like life changing. And also it was so much created by communication because this was a 12-year-old and I was willing to sit down with the 12 year olds and to listen to their inputs.

Jared: Mm-hmm.

Felienne: And, and that is, was sort of necessary to even get the information. And I will definitely admit on air, uh, that at first I wasn't so excited. I was like, why is this really necessary? I also thought this will be a lot of work to build and who has to build it? Well, me, uh, so I, I, I wasn't immediately swayed.

It wasn't like light came from the sky and it was like, oh no. I was just like, nah, nah. So it took- it took me time. Coming back to your first question, it took me time to realize how important it is. And of course, over time, specifically, and I've talked about this in many other venues as well, when we started to move from Latin languages to Arabic and Chinese and Hindi, but specifically Arabic, uh, because it was so different, all the linguistic concepts that I knew were different.

So the farther away we were getting from Dutch and English, the more convinced I was I was becoming. And so it was very, I'm agreeing with myself. It's the easiest thing, but I'm agreeing with myself in the book that you were just saying that it isn't, you change your mind. Bam. It's still, it's still an ongoing process in which I have to unlearn that programming should be English.

Jared: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And in there, I believe you say that those older concepts, they can come back. They aren't just poof, gone and, and completely changed. It's actually that sometimes we revert back to those old mental models, right?

Felienne: Yes, and they change as well. So for me, now, keywords means a different thing, right? It's not that I don't talk about keywords anymore, but now if I think of the keyword, just if I think of print as a keyword, like print, hello world, I don't just see print. I also say a see affiche in French and قول in Arabic.

So it, the, the concept has, has deepened and widened. It has become something different. And then the old mental model also becomes limiting. If I now look at a programming language that's only in English, what, what a what a what a small language. I wanna have this bigger, richer variety of different languages.

And, and how do you, you are even allowed to mix different languages together so you can program in different natural languages. We don't care. We allow you, because so many people are also not my idea. Something someone told me, but someone, uh, Mark Guzdial specifically told me, like, Felienne, some people are bilingual, so you don't wanna have English or Spanish.

He was, uh, specifically talking about Spanish speakers. He says, many people, they don't speak English or Spanish. They speak both languages. And also in a programming context, they will want to mix and pick the language, the natural language that fit the most in the sentence. So that's why we also allow like this bilingual form of programming.

So the same concept just becomes a different form of the original.

Jared: Yeah. Spanglish.

Felienne: Yes, Dunglish. You can say about Dutch, but mostly if people say Dunglish, they mean like I speak English. Like the pronunciation isn't really perfect.

Jared: Oh yeah. I see. Yeah. But I like that it's like, um, it makes me think of the phrase that bell hooks uses about consciousness raising.

Felienne: Yes.

Jared: about how you are now have a wider view, as you said, of, of when you think of that, you don't just think of it in this one small box now that is a much larger thing of thinking about.

So, yeah. Very neat. Okay, so then this makes me think about, we're talking about Hedy here.

[00:28:35] Hedy's gradual syntax

Jared: How, how did your experience, like why did you choose to make this syntax this? Uh, you can kind of explain a little bit what this is the sort of adaptive design of it that makes me think of how like, uh, super Mario Brothers is, is a game that when you start out, um, you only have to know a couple of things and as you go along, it sort of builds up the, the set of things that you need to, to do in order to get to the next level.

So it's sort of like you learn a new concept, but it's not. Suddenly at the very beginning, you need to know all of the concepts. It's like at the beginning, you only need to know how to move left and right and then jump. So yeah.

Felienne: Yeah, I love it how you pick Mario there as an example. But many things are like this. Also, natural language learning. You don't have to do big sentences with sub sentences and articles of verbs and nouns, right? In the beginning, you could just do letters and then you do words. And the, and the same is true for math.

First you learn counting and then you learn adding, and then you might learn multiplication and subtraction and division. So it, it goes slowly. And what I realized when I was failing teaching seventh grade for, for a while, is that if you learn programming, you just have to learn too many things at the same time.

So something simple. Uh, in Python, even just printing, it's like print and then brackets and then quotes, and then in it, hello world. That's just many, many things. And if you mess something up, then it doesn't say, oh, little mistake, no biggie, I will fix it for you. It says syntax error, and then usually gets like red letters.

Um, with, with a lot of jargon in it as well. What is syntax, right? Error, or maybe most kids know, but syntax, what is syntax? What is parsing? What is even an unmatched quote? What does that mean? So I just saw a lot of kids hitting this syntax barrier. And of course, it's not a problem if learning is hard.

Learning is hard. Life is hard. Things may be hard, but this wasn't a useful hard. And so many kids said, why do I have to put the brackets there? Why do I have to put the quotation there? And then I had to say, as a teacher, well. I had to explain them why, but then you are giving a compilers course, because then you have to say, right, it's important for the computer to know what goes with what, et cetera.

Or you have to say, well, don't think about it. Just Do what I tell you. Which also isn't didactically really valid way because it, it's just not so encouraging. And, and then I just thought, why, why are programming languages like this for learning? If you're, if you're just interested in doing print, hello, you can just do print hello. You only need the brackets if you want to have multiple arguments and you only need the quotation marks if you also have variables, because if everything is a string, nothing needs quotation marks. I just thought, well, I know how to build programming languages. In my PhD dissertation, I had also worked on programming language and I, I had always been very excited about building programming languages, maybe because it's the part of programming where there's most freedom in creation.

I dunno. I just thought I can build a programming language that just removes all the syntax in the beginning and then adds a little bit, and adds a little bit, and adds a little bit. And after a few semesters of just failing to get the 12 year olds excited about Python, except for the ones that were already excited about Python, I thought, well, I know how to build a programming language.

I will, these are dangerous words. I thought I will just build a tiny prototype just to show that it can be done. Whoops.

Jared: Oh, that's great. Yeah, just, just the prototype. It's still, it's only a prototype.

Felienne: And now currently, I

don't remember the last, the last time I checked, we supported 69 different natural languages. We have hundreds of thousands of users every month. It's crazy. We get, we get emails from like Botswana in the south of Africa, Indonesia. I was running a code camp like literally the other week where they send us pictures of 90 kids in Indonesia programming in, in a natural language I had never heard of before.

It's wicked

Jared: that's wonderful. Yeah. That's amazing. And um, and when did you start building Hedy? When did you create that prototype?

Felienne: end of 2019, so the Christmas break of '19 to '20, so that's like five and a half years ago.

Jared: Yeah. Okay. Wow, that's great. And, um, this makes me think, you're talking about error messages. There's a little bit in there. Um, this relates to Elm. So folks we've been talking for a bit here, and I'll bring it back a little bit here to Elm.

Um, in "A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design", uh, in 2.1, there's this, uh, this part that says "a recent study on error messages in Elm showed that their well phrased error messages were the most named positive experience of professionals working with the language". And I think I can agree with that.

You know, as from my experience, it's, it's one of the, um, one of the things that's really wonderful, and of course it's designed to be great for folks who are beginning, right? Like for beginners, but it's not only for beginners, it's, and this is something that I think, um, we talk about, you know, systemic values, um.

It's something that seems like it, it has to be overcome, uh, for folks to, to recognize that this is something that can also be valuable. You know, I've, like I said, eight years or so that I've been writing Elm now. Um, and I still find it valuable because I use it as a guide instead of a blocker, right? So it's, it's like, okay, I want to, um, I talked about this just the other day.

Um, at the end of the day, what I like to do is, so I know where I'm gonna start the next day. I don't have to build up all this context in my brain, right? I can say, I'm gonna put a little compiler error right at this point in the code, and maybe I'll, I'll put something in there that'll tell me like, this is where I'm gonna be going next.

And that will sort of be the jumping off point, you know, for my, for my brain to say, okay, here, you can kind of boot up from here. And then if I'm coding throughout the day and. Of course, you know, I could just make a mistake, but sometimes I'll use it intentionally, like I'll expect an error message. And this is much different than before I used Elm, where whenever I would work, I would not save or not rebuild the application until I had, you know, did a fine tooth, you know, review of all the code and made sure, okay, this is going to work.

Because I didn't want that ugly message to tell me how wrong I was. Um, or, um, yeah, I just, I, I find it to be, um, just so much nicer in, in that

Felienne: It is so much nicer. And this, I think one of the findings of the paper, or actually I should say one of the findings that Ari already in her study on Elm had found is that in. At least in the academic setting, you, you are sort, you are allowed, everyone can do what they want, but you're allowed in, in sort of the cultural sense to study error messages for novices.

So there's a lot of work on error messages for, for kids, for beginners, for non-professionals, but studying error messages for professionals, Ari was sort of the first one that really looked at how professional programmers struggle with error messages or appreciate error messages because there is this assumption that programming should be hard, that it is like a puzzle.

So of course, uh, professionals are going to be fine with syntax error, unexpected EOF, because they're professionals. But, but why very often now that I work with Hedy, I use Hedy myself and then I get an error message that is a sentence in Dutch. I actually like this. I prefer an error message that is a sentence.

I prefer an error message that is in Dutch. English doesn't come easy to me. It is not my first language. So this assumption that it has to be hard is also annoying if you are a programmer. Of course, I can deal with error messages, but I don't want to.

Jared: Yeah. And this makes me think about, you're talking about the, um, this idea that it has to be hard. And I'm thinking about like, why is that? Why, why does it have to be hard? And of course, you know, there's this system of values and it makes me think like, why are we, or why did I avoid those error messages?

And I think that a bit of, it's maybe this sense of like, shame of like, that I, that I did something wrong for failing. Like this, this ability or this idea that like if I fail, if I don't complete the challenge, then I've, I've failed. And, you know, is this feeling of shame that I'm trying to avoid. So I wonder, you know, just, um, just kind of coming to me.

But also I think based on, I've been reading, um, The Will to Change by bell hooks and, um, thinking about that from that perspective of like masculinity and how this, this, um, this idea of, you know, like feeling shameful and how to avoid that and where even anger comes in as a, you know, as a, as a tool to, um, to destroy, you know, that, that, uh, emotion.

So, yeah. Interesting.

[00:38:12] Programming language community, learning, and valuing hard things

Jared: Let me ask you about the programming language community and how it affects learning. Um, this, there's this other quote from A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design, in 1.2, which says that "a central principle in feminism, particularly in feminist philosophy and feminist science and technology studies, is that knowledge is shaped by the context in which it is made by the people who are creating knowledge. And that knowledge shapes our world." Um, yeah. Could you talk about that, about the, the community and how that, um, affects learning that

Felienne: Yeah, definitely. So we, we can go back to our previous point on on hard is valuable and we like things to be hard. So if you like things to be hard, then you get really hard programming languages. If, if that's what you celebrate and maybe you get really complex code. And of course now a lot of people, sometimes these people send me emails.

They say, yeah, but I've, I like really simple code. And I like many people that like simple code. It's like, yes, this is true. But by and large, our field, we, we all I think feel this, that our field does value complicated work. This is what we appreciate, and that having something that is readable, has to be fought for, has to be argued for.

Why do we have to do this refactoring? Why do we have to write documentation? Why do we have to make it understandable? So, so I do think a lot of that comes from a lot of programming languages and uh, uh, the way code bases are organized comes from a value system and also in terms of who gets to participate in programming language creation.

I think one of the most shocking things that just I didn't know when I started to make Hedy in Arabic is that hardly any programming languages can deal with anything in Arabic. So Arabic uses different numerals, so different characters for numerals where English or Dutch would use a five. Uh, this is a, like a five.

Um, in Arabic there's a different symbol. It's called khamsa (٥), and it's, it looks like a zero for, for me and for people like me. And so it's definitely different characters. So firstly I didn't even know this, so for 35 years I didn't know Arabic numerals were not the numerals I knew. We call our numerals Arabic numerals.

They are not. Um, even though I knew Roman numerals, most people in the western world will know Roman numerals. Why is this so important? We all know them at least a little bit. And then 300 million people use different numerals in Arabic. We don't know that. And elementary school didn't teach me this, but also all the compiler courses I took in university never taught me this.

You look at the Dragon Book, which is a famous book for making programming languages, and it just said Digit zero to nine, my zero to my nine, and there zero to there nine, but not sifr to tisʿa, which is Arabic zero to nine. So first I was like, wow, no one knows this. That is peculiar. I am to come back to your theme.

I'm wondering why this might be, and then I tried it. I just literally tried, oh, do other programming languages if I just do print itnayn what tisʿa. So this is two plus nine in Arabic. Um, what happens? And I check the whole top 10 Tiobe index and all of them crash or like give an error message, right? All of them fail.

Um, and they all do it in, in horrendous way. If you think of people are commun—, you are communicating with people. Like Python says invalid character. What do you mean invalid character? This is my number. So that just, I have the screenshot, right? I'm not visualizing it of course in front of me. You can also try it.

Invalid character. And this is not a technical problem, right? This is a cultural problem because that screenshots. What does this tell us about us? What can we learn about programming, right? So, so firstly we can, we can see that it is populated by people like me that aren't Arabic, um, or, or any of the other numeral systems, uh, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, they all have, uh, Hindi or different numeral systems.

Um, so the, the, the other people, they aren't there. And if they're there, they have to play by my rules. Apparently in none of these programming languages communities, someone that isn't Western rose to the level of power where they're like, Hey guys or girls, but yeah. Hey people. Hey folk. Uh, maybe it would be fun if also my numerals were in there.

Um, so, so the fact that we have created this culture in which this doesn't exist, and I'm just talking about numerals, it's just numerals there, there's, I, I literally wrote a paper on this, uh, three years ago. There's like 11 other things you might want to localize, like gender and accents and all these other things, but just numbers.

Just that I can literally do one plus one in any numeral system . And that was just such a process for me where I was, I was talking about sort of leaving the cult where the first step was, why don't I know this? Why hasn't programming told me this? And the second step was why didn't programming give enough power to people that have this knowledge, to share this knowledge with me?

And then the third step was I was still naive. And now this is like three years ago or maybe two. Um, I thought this is a mistake. It's just, it, it's just a coincidence that, that programming doesn't know this. I'll just go tell people about it. I'll just say, Hey friends, hey, hey, maybe you didn't think of this before, but it would be nice if we would also include these numerals and, and some other things for, for non-Western people.

You would be just feel, uh, better for me. I think it's better for, for some people in those cultures, uh, that would be maybe nice to also include these numbers. And I, I thought, again, I was very naive. I thought, now programming right now as a culture, they'll say, Felienne, thank you. Wow. We didn't know. We will absolutely immediately start implementing this because that's what I did.

Right? That's who I am at the moment I figured it out. Um, well, not the moment, but after, after a while, at least I kept, um, being, uh, open-minded about it. And I thought, I, I have to build this now that I have this knowledge. I cannot sleep if I don't put this in Hedy. So I thought, I will give this gift also to other people, and then they'll be like, thank you Felienne, we will go implement this right away.

What a great suggestion. But that was not what happened. Um, it wasn't even shrugging. It was like, nay, no, no. Why would we do this? This is ridiculous. "They" can just, "just" learn some English. This is not necessary. People really started to like, push back, and then I thought, what, who are those people? Why? Why am I, why am I in here?

That's I, I have nothing in common with people who do not think that this is a problem to be fixed. And then now suddenly, of course, it's not a puzzle, right? For me, when I saw this Arabic numerals problem, I thought this is an interesting puzzle. I am, partly, triggered because I wanna build it, but also partly because I think it will be an interesting challenge.

So I was like, Hey, people that like an interesting challenge. This is a very, very interesting challenge. It's super hard to build, but they didn't care. So it was also so very much then for me, this moment where I thought, they right and, and just, I wanna stress once more. Not everyone. I know so many people who do care about this and specifically in the Elm community, but I think it's easy for people as soon as they can let this anger go that I'm talking to about them, they can see that this is the way our system works. I thought for you it's not about the challenge, it's only about the challenge that you have decided that you care about. Because here I'm presenting to you a very interesting and fun challenge, but you don't care about it because it's not for you.

And I'm like, of course this wasn't one day to the next. This go went very, very, very slowly. But then at one point I just thought, I'm out. I don't, I, I don't, I don't want to with them people.

Jared: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I think the, the thing that it makes me think about is the. Again, you know, you and I both being part of the group that doesn't think about typically about those differences, right? About the, the fact that, uh, a zero or a one looks different and there are different words for it.

[00:47:19] How language design choices affect cognitive load

Jared: And I think bringing this back to what, the way that this is a blocker, right? Is that, you know, why don't they just right Is, is Evan Czap- Czaplicki would say, um, um, I think it was 2019 where he gave the talk about, um, about communities. And, and one of the things that he said, um, was that sometimes folks would comment in, in the, along the lines of, why don't you just do, and then, you know, whatever the thing that they thought was, was the thing that he should do.

Of course, why don't you just as a pretty loaded. A thing which could involve, um, you know, a lot of of work that, that folks don't think about. So, yeah, I guess what I'm trying to get to is it may not be common, but like what? What way does it block folks? Right? And how, how does it affect them? And so going, going back to The Programmer's Brain here, I want to ask about how language design choices affect cognitive load.

Could you talk a little bit about that?

Felienne: Absolutely. That's a great question. So we can sort of pick it up from the localization because I think that's a, uh, an easy place because we left it off there that if a programming language has key words in English, so it's like print. Um, but of course, in many places if you make software that isn't in English, which is in many places, a lot of the code base will be In the not English language. So in Dutch, for example, we have a text system, but the text system only exists in Dutch. So the strings are in Dutch and variables are in Dutch, and that's still okay. But imagine you're making a system in Arabic. Then of course also your variable names if you're programming language allows this.

But definitely your strings and your comments will be in your own language. That means that in one line you have to switch keyboards because you have to type print in English letters, and then you want to switch to the string. And you only have one keyboard on your computer. So in between, either you have to click with a mouse or you do a a button press to switch to the other alphabet on the keyboards, and then you can do your Arabic string, and then you have to switch back for the quotes and for the closing.

So if this is the way you program, this is annoying. This breaks your flow. This adds cognitive load because a bunch of times in a line you have to switch, and that's just annoying. I think that, for me was one of my, um, an argument I had to learn from Arabic speakers. I was of course, somewhat Western and somewhat imperialist maybe.

I, I thought also partly, I can definitely admit this, I will be helping them, right? Which is not a good way to think of it, but that's just also how white people in Western countries are raised. And I'm still unlearning a lot of things. I thought I will be helping them to make the language more for them.

Um, but of course they don't need this help in the sense that otherwise they will not be able to understand it. There are hundreds of millions of programmers that don't have English as a first language, but this will always be annoying. That's always just a hindrance, just a little bit of extra work, cognitive work or, um, automated mechanical work for the button presses that you'll have to do.

And now I actually have learned a Arabic through this project. I now know some Arabic and I sometimes type in Arabic or in a mix of Arabic and English and Dutch with my friends who speak also those three languages. And I cannot believe how annoying it is to switch keyboards. And that is, I think, a great example of how a programming language causes extra thinking, extra cognitive load.

And the nice thing of this example is also, it doesn't do that for everyone because you, Jared M Smith, who I can guess your first language is English. Um, you do not have this problem. And I had only very, very partly had this problem, so we're not even using the same programming language, but here, this is an example of how the design of a language makes you think of certain things and just another example that people might be a little bit more familiar of.

Um, I, I used C Sharp for a very, very long time, and then I switched to Python and it has been maybe 10 years since I lost last touched, uh. C sharp. But still, if I make a for loop, if I'm looping over a list, I type, usually I hear it in my head, but often I also type it for each. For each because it's just a better keyword for each.

It makes a nice sentence for each, something in something and, but Python forces me to have a for loop. That's for I and a for loop that is for customer in orders or something with the same keywords. And for me, not for everyone. Of course, if you're a Python from birth, then you might not suffer. Suffer from this.

But for me, this extra cognitive load because I always have to override this prior, uh, assumption that it is for each. And then my finger goes like FOR and it goes to the space, it goes to the e and f. It goes, stop, stop, stop, stop. This is the wrong letter. And that this in, in my specific case, uh, adds cognitive load.

Um, so these are just a few simple examples from, from ver from various different backgrounds where one programming language might make it easier for you to do certain things in a certain context if you're from a certain background. Um, and it might be harder for different people.

Jared: Yeah, totally. And that makes me think about this episode I did of Elm Town with Tessa Kelly and. And I started talking, and you kind of talked about it a bit here, about, um, how we sort of have this, um, or like, I, I, I presented it in a way that made it sound like we were, you know, saving somebody from something, right?

Like this savior complex, right? Um, and, and then she was like, well, I try to think about it like I'm unblocking them, right? Like, I'm, I'm just, you're, you're not, like, I don't know. I guess it's like that trying to shed that ego again, going back to that like, it's not about I, it's about we, right? And there's an imbalance when,

Felienne: yeah,

Jared: when it's more difficult for somebody than it is for someone else.

I mean, it is

Felienne: And it's also just, I think about. Making people feel seen. So now if I show, um, if I show Hedy in Arabic, if I do it in a talk there, there's very often a few people that have Arabic as a first language. And so often they just come to me filled with emotion. They say like, wow, what, I gave a, a talk at PyCon a few months ago, and a guy from Syria, he comes to me, he said, I had never thought I would see a for loop in a Arabic. I just didn't think this is a thing I would ever see. I hadn't like, like me and he's even a Arabic, right? Uh, I, I had never thought that that could be an option. And it just, it fills people with joy. And that's, that's very different of course from this. He was a professional Python programmer.

Certainly he had not needed my help to become a programmer. He was, he was doing fine, but still he felt seen and he felt included. And the fact that I, I have made this for him, feels, fills me also with joy.

Jared: Yeah.

Felienne: You know, sometimes I'm angry. That might be clear. Um, I'm angry with programming for being so selfish, but sometimes I'm also like, but I could, my good friends you don't know what you're missing, have you?

Like, sex is great, but have you ever made something for someone that they really, really like using?

Jared: Yes. Yeah. Finding that joy in the connection and the communication there. Yeah. That's nice. And so this, I, I, again, talking with, uh, folks from the Elm community, they're gonna be screaming at me if I don't mention it. Um, I, and this is often comes up I think on Elm Radio with Dillon Kearns and Jeroen Engels, where they talk about cognitive load and, and with Elm.

Um, there, there's a good episode about ADHD and in coding and how by the fact that Elm is a purely functional language, there are a lot of things that we don't have to think about when we're writing Elm because they're just impossible, right? Like the, the language makes it impossible to create a side effect.

And the only thing that that can change, um, is, is what's returned from, uh, the function. So, um, yeah, that's, um, makes me think about that.

[00:56:22] History of women in computing

Jared: And then this also makes me think about, um, something from, I don't have the the line of where it is, but in  "A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design", you all talk about how programming was originally more female oriented and then became male oriented.

Um, and then specifically about mathematics, and I think this ties into Elm because we don't use words like monad typically, um, to describe, uh, effects and, and, but, um, and it's a language like, not to pick on Haskell, but just an example of one, um, uses the word monad. And so that's like another sort of category theory concept that you would, um, need to learn if you don't already know it in order to, uh, program in that language.

So

Felienne: Yeah.

Jared: Talk a little bit about that, about, um, that sort of journey of programming languages,

Felienne: yeah. So I just wrote, so not wrote, I just read, uh, a very interesting paper on the history of COBOL. I will definitely email it to you if you wanna put it in the show notes where, um, programming indeed, programmer used to mean person, and it used to mean women, uh, female person specifically. Um, because programming.

The labor division in the early computer days was men, mostly scientists were building the computers and using them and making the programs, and they were just, uh, just do it. Uh, just here. Women just put, you put this in the computer. And it was seen as like secretarial work, just typing up the algorithm.

And the men were doing the algorithms and the women were doing the programming. But of course, quickly they realized that there was challenge also in putting it in the computer correctly. And in those early days, some programming languages were really designed by women, COBOL, for example, um, by women who valued communication.

And these programming languages were very wordy. And, and then, and then of course men wanted to make the programming languages less wordy and more mathematic. And it's very interesting that computer science, now I'm talking about the academic field of computer science was a field without a home in the beginning because it, it wasn't an academic field.

People in companies were building computers, people in universities were building computers and, and then it was like, okay, but the study of these things, where does it go? And it was a bit of many different things. It was a bit of linguistics and like Noam Chomsky for example, but it was also a bit of like a game theory and economics.

Herbert Simon, who was a political, political scientist, but he also won during awards and a Nobel Prize for Economy. But you see how multidisciplinary those people were. And then it was of course, electrical en- engineering because people were building new computers and people were making programming language.

But math, at least the type of math that you mean if you say monad, right? Math wasn't actually so big a part of it in those early days of pioneering the computers. So now sometimes, no, sometimes very often actually, I think people say, oh, computer science comes from math. But that's not really true.

Computer science in the academic sense doesn't come from anything. And it was just a bunch of people doing different things. But at one point some people thought, oh, well we want to have this land in the university because it's a good source of money because companies are making computers. Where does it go?

And then the way that universities are organized and shaped are a field of study must land in something like the faculty of language or the faculty of engineering, or the faculty of science. Um, and, and the way of course the, the world is already organized is that science and engineering are seen as more valuable than linguistics or economy or language.

And so it ultimately ended up in most places, either in the natural sciences or in engineering schools, and in that switch, programming or computer science became more math because it had to be math because it was in a science or engineering department. And of course then you have, you need math. You need math also to make the case.

So people were making the case. I say this also in the feminism paper that Dijkstra was making the case in 1973. He says, I'm arguing, I don't know the literal words, people can look it up, but he's saying something like, I'm arguing that programming should be seen as mathematical. But it is 1973. Right? So this is 30 years after the first big computers, 20 years after the first compilers in the first programming languages, and now in the mid seventies, he's saying, we must understand programming as math.

Yo, okay, Edsger. But like, what were we doing then 30 years from now, like. not math? So that definitely says something about how computer science wasn't originating from math, because then you don't have to say in the mid seventies, Hey, hey guys, let's make it math. Um, and of course also in that switch, um, of course many other social dynamics as well.

But in that switch also programming was made male because now it was in an engineering school. And in this paper I talk about, uh, Nathan Ensmenger. Uh, he is one of my scientific crushes. I like everything he writes. It's so good. And so, so he writes that, early computing was unusually open to women because it wasn't an established field, because no one said, Hey, hey ladies, in order to be here, you need to have a degree in something, because there were no degrees.

So there wasn't a natural way of gatekeeping because you couldn't easily say, oh, but you like this and this and this, because no one had this and this, this, and this wasn't invented yet. So in this formalization, also, women were excluded because then it was, Hey, you cannot participate because you didn't go to engineering school.

And now we are in engineering school, so now you need an engineering degree or you need a math degree or A levels in math or stuff like this. So the institu- institutionalization also created this systems of power that enabled exclusion. I'm sure many of the men before also would have wanted to kick some women out, but there wasn't a system of power that they could point to and say, this is why you're not welcome here.

And that became, which is institutionalization into science and math. Sorry, this was again a very long answer.

Jared: No, uh, that's, that's great. Um, to, to get the, the full idea there. And, um, I think that goes into more detail, you know, than, than just what, um, what we will, um, I'll of course link to everything we talked about, but the, um, the paper " A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design".

So, yeah, this makes me think when you say like, it needs a department, so it needs like a label is, is, is what it makes me think of.

[01:03:40] Kotodama (言霊): What's in a name?

Jared: And it makes me think about this, this word, Japanese word, kotodama (言霊), um, that I'm a fan of, and it's the power of words and, and it, and there's this question of like. What's the importance of a name, you know, like, like Hedy for example, like Hedy, that that means something when you name a programming language Hedy. If, if you want to, you know, explore and, and, and talk about it, um, or bell hooks or Effect versus Monad or um, Felienne even. So before we started I was asking, um, you know, should I call you Felienne or Felienne Hermans? And, um, and that's partly because, um, it's just something that I try to think about. Like, you know, how do, how do people present themselves?

You know, what, what is, what are their words?

Felienne: Yeah, yeah. There was this other, maybe people are, uh, they know the Future of Coding podcast. Uh, I,

Jared: yes.

Felienne: it. They had an episode on my paper. Uh, we can also link to it if people want. And they had a very long discussion about whether they should call me Hermans or Felienne, uh, and, and they talked about this social dynamic that very often women are named by their first name, but men are named by their last name.

And that, of course is also a way of, of giving power or giving credits that certainly if people would call me Hermans or, or if they would call me Professor Hermans or Dr. Hermans, which is also my name, uh, in a certain system of power, um, it has a very different ring to it. If people say, well, Felienne, wrote, or if people would say, Dr.

Hermans wrote, um, and I don't care as a person, but I do care as a system of power. I do care if me and all my sister professors and doctors aren't names with our titles and their last names, but all the men are, then I do care about it. Even if, for me, I still, you know, I, I, I don't force you to give me respect because I have a title.

I prefer it if you give me respect because of, you know, the things I'm saying that might be interesting to you, but as a system of power, definitely. So this is also, when you were asking me this, I asked you, what do you do for other guests? Like what do you normally do? And if you normally do last names, you should also do it for me because otherwise we are together also contributing to a system of power that we don't like.

At least I don't.

Jared: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And that's perfect. I was going to bring that up. That, that, um, podcast episode. I was listening to that and it made me think, uh, they didn't bring up the, the thing that I think about, it's like a last name is, I mean, both names are, are given to us usually. Um, but oftentimes the, the last name comes from, you know, a male, uh, you know, father figure, patriarchy, um, name.

And so that's something that I think about is like, I. I mean, it's obvious when you think about it, right? Like the, the power of, well, if you have this last name, then you must be blah blah's child. And you know, and, and now you

Felienne: Or wife.

Jared: Yeah, yeah. Um, and yeah, so like that just, I don't know, it just irks me. It makes me wanna change my name.

It really does. It's like, it just feels so, I don't know, it just out of, I guess, out of control. And, and of course we have to accept that that's like the way it is in order to be able to, to do something about it. But yeah, it just, um, it, it's really interesting. It's, it creates a sense of wonder, you know, of why,

Felienne: It does. Yeah. Yeah, my husband took my last name when we got married because it was more impractical for me to change my name because it is a name people know. Uh, but many people also, so find it like, it also creates wonder, whereas if I would've taken his name, everybody like, huh, okay, normal. Like, you do it or you don't do it.

And I was like, oh, wow. This is so special. Yes, so special that he did that for you. Like you don't say that to female people that take the name of their spouse.

Jared: Right. Yeah. That, that's, that's just the system. Yeah.

Felienne: Yeah.

Jared: Interesting. Yeah. And, and also I, I wanted to, to point out with names is like, we talk about male and female, men and women, and, and oftentimes in programming we get in this like very like binary, um, view of looking at things. And, and the reality is that the world is analog, right.

There. It, it's, and, and they mentioned this into the Future of, of Coding podcast episode, that like, it, it's not even linear. Like it's, I don't know. I I like to think of it as like you could think of. Yeah. It's like, I mean, it's multidimensional. It's, um. It's quantum bit in super position.

You know, it's like, I don't know. It's just, um, yeah. It doesn't have to be anyway. It doesn't have to be, um, if, if we keep an open mind about it.

[01:08:49] Switching to a dumb phone

Jared: So I was just looking at week six of the AI news, um, from your blog

Felienne: Oh yeah.

Jared: and you, you mentioned that you might be switching to a dumb phone. I was just, this is kind

Felienne: Oh yes, I will. It's, it's arriving next week.

Jared: Tell me more. I'm curious about this.

Felienne: Uh, what do you wanna know?

Jared: Like, um, why, I guess, why are you switching to a dumb phone? What, like, what, what does it, um, provide for you?

Felienne: Um, so, I dunno. Yet we will see. Um, but. I think what, what is happening now to me and many people is if whatever, wherever you are, you're, you're waiting for the train. You're sitting having dinner, and someone goes to the toilet. Then you, you grab your phone and then you go into the phone. Why? Right.

What is there?

And then what do you do? Well, before, in the before times, I was always on Twitter and I had a lot of fun on Twitter, and I learned many things there. Um, but it's always, it's the default. And that also makes you not notice the, the world. Right? If you're in a restaurant, you can also just look around and that's also enjoyable.

And we did that for how long do people exist

Jared: Mm-hmm.

Felienne: depending on your perspective? Um, a hundred years, 10,000 years. Uh, 50,000 years Noticing. I think I learned this sort of from everything that happens everywhere. Noticing is great. It is great to notice things and sometimes it can be great to notice things on the internet.

So I'm not throwing away internet or my computer, but I want to notice with my full attention, I want to eat with my full attention. I want to read with my full attention and I'm already sort of half switching. Um, because in preparation of not having a phone, I already almost deleted all of my apps from my phone.

I do have an iPad, and then I have of course my banking app and stuff on my iPad. Maybe I'll go more hardcore later, but now I don't have anything already on my phone. It is already, my life is better because I notice things, and then if the train is late, then I just notice, oh, this is, you mentioned sto stoicism before.

I'm like, I'm annoyed. This is annoying. Why is the train always late? It is fine to notice feelings. It is actually healthy and good. It is not always healthy and good to think, scrolling, calling, calling. And I think maybe in given current circumstances, scrolling is also not, not good, but just reading books.

And then my new phone, my dumb phone, uh, will, will be a half smartphone in that it'll have podcasts, it'll have directions and, and a good, uh, camera. It's called light phone. They do not sponsor me. Um, so it, it gives you the ability to listen to content, but with attention and just this scrolling or checking your email.

No, no. Now already I'm like, why? Why would I ever have done this? I'm just going out for a drink with friends and I'm checking my email. Why? Why are you doing this? Because you're bored and because you are, you don't want to notice your body. You don't want to exist in the world. It's like, like when you used to smoke, when many people used to smoke.

It's just like, oh, writing a cigarettes. It wasn't even about, Hmm, I really feel like having a cigarette. Or it's like, you go drinking, you have five beers, and then after that all bets are off. It's not with the seventh beer that you think, Hmm, I'm really craving a drink. No, it just, it happens and it's this automated system, and then the next morning you're like, eh, that was a shit idea.

But I think maybe after now, years and years of scrolling on my phone all the time, I'm like, why am I doing this? And already I'm, I think I'm turning into a more interesting person. I've started this newsletter in the beginning of this year where every week now, I, I am not doing it in English anymore because it's too much work.

I only do it in Dutch, but every week I just write down stuff that I saw and not in a one line tweet. Like, look at me being snarky about the news, but I'm actually, I make time because I'm not scrolling all the time to, to read and engage and synthesize and have a long form of telling something. Just it is nicer and happier.

And of course, this is like quitting drinking. Quitting meat, quitting cigarettes. I'm like, why are all the other people not also in this beautiful world of not being addicted? I don't get it.

Jared: it. Yeah. Thank you. Um, that's makes me think of awareness, right? And

Felienne: Yeah. Of noticing. Yeah.

Jared: this sense of wonder of, of being curious. And, and sometimes you need boredom. You need that lack of stimulation in order to be creative, right? In order to, to look at the world around you and recognize you're in it.

And yeah, like you said, to deal with emotions and to even going back to the, The Programmer's Brain, um, to go through the full semantic wave. Is that the right term?

Felienne: Yes. Where you, where you learn a new concept, you mean?

Jared: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're like. As opposed to like scrolling. I like that. I don't like that binary, you know, view of the world. You, you take time. If you encounter something that, oh, that's interesting, let me think about that. Right? And then, and then you synthesize it with all the other knowledge that you already

Felienne: Yes, exactly like this. And where also you notice confusion or you notice anger. Um, and, and I, I mean, I am not a saint or anything. I used to do this for, I dunno how long I was on Twitter, a decade more probably, that you read something, it makes you angry and then your immediate response is to go on Twitter and say, this makes me angry, but, but snappier so that people start to follow you. Like, is that really the best thing? Like, anger is good. I think bell hooks. Anger has, has a value and it's okay to feel angry, but it's not always useful to immediately turn that anger into 140 or whatever character social media has. Sometimes it's good to just think, I am angry and there is no ex x. uitlaatpijp, you can say in Dutch, like exhaust pipe.

Like there's no way this anger can go. Now it has to stay in me, it cannot go and, and I can type something on my computer, but that doesn't really solve the problem. Just like feel the anger. That's okay, have the anger and then if every day the same thing makes you angry, maybe you can write a pamphlet, right?

Or, or, or a letter to whoever is in a little bit more power. Maybe that is more useful. But if the only thing you do every day is on, on, on your phone, then it feels like you're dealing with your anger. And, and maybe you are. And it's absolutely fine if, if that is your way of dealing with the current world.

No judgment at all. We have to do the way, the things that, in the way that work for us in the current, uh, state of things. But it might also be that, that it will prevent you from doing other things.

Jared: Yeah. Yeah, most definitely. Right? Like that's the attention is the, the commodity that, that everybody wants. And,

Felienne: Yeah,

Jared: if, if it's, um, the superficial version of it, there, there we're not, like, it's like we're, I don't know, apes just like bashing at the keyboard and, and yelling at each other, but not solving anything

[01:16:48] AI

Felienne: yeah. And also we haven't talked about AI. I am not sure if I wanna bring it up now, but I will because I can't help myself. What I also notice is that now that I'm reading more, now that I, I read books instead of scrolling. That reading is so, it's so great. It's like this one 12-year-old boy that says, oh, why isn't this in, in Dutch?

That reading, sometimes also you read one sentence. And you're like, wow. Like one of the, the papers I was reading for the feminism paper in the paper that I was reading is this sentence that women in computing, they feel like they have to be a programmer or a woman, but they cannot be both. And I was reading that it was like, wow, I feel so seen.

And it wasn't about everything that was in the paper. It was an interview study and I'm sure many of it was interesting, but I forgot every other thing at least. I don't know all the other things by heart, but just this one sentence, I, it was like, this is going in my heart. And then there's people, smart people, some of whom I appreciate in other facts of what they're doing.

They, they will argue that you can use AI to summarize books or to summarize papers. And I'm like, only in a world that has already been destroyed by social media and capitalism and all the other things that have destroyed our world. Can that sentence even be thought and uttered? Because if you are a person, and I wasn't always this person for many decades, I was not this person.

I'm this person now, so I will tell everyone, if you are a person that just genuinely enjoys reading books then, or papers, then the idea that it should be optimized is just inconceivable. These words make no sense. You might as well say, I, I want to eat a truck. The they are words, but they make no sense.

What, what will you eat? It just, it is so magical where somehow we have gotten ourself into a situation in which things that are enjoyable and that give value. It's just like looping it back to the beginning of this episode when you are just reading my book. To me it's like, yes, that's. What is better than reading and gaining knowledge and having a connection even though it's not us talking, but it is us talking.

If you read my book, we are talking and you can, and that's way you can "talk". You can talk to Plateau and Socrates and like to these and and Karl Marx. I was reading Karl Marx a while ago. I was like, wow, someone is seeing my struggle. It was so good. It is weird that we are now in this situation where people say that we can do it quicker, but why?

like, it's like Soylent Green for thinking,

Jared: Yeah.

Felienne: but I like eating stuff.

Jared: Yeah. Where the focus is only on the outcome and not on the process.

Felienne: And also that it's not even the same outcome, right? Reading a summary doesn't have the same outcome

as reading a whole book. It's not even the same

thing because you'll miss out on these sentences.

Jared: yeah. Creates like a, the brain just goes on like a baseline hum,

Felienne: Yeah.

Jared: these things just kinda keep flowing in, but it doesn't actually do any thinking

Felienne: No, and it's also very much this anti-feminist way of thinking, almost that you can separate knowledge from the knower, right? Reading a book by bell hooks also means you have to reckon with what bell hooks is as a concept or what Karl Marx is as a concept. Those things cannot be separated.

When was that written? Who is this person? Who? Who are their parents? Or what community did they grow up in? Those things— you sort of have to also know these things. How did those people see themselves? How did other people see them? I always tell my students sometimes they're really confused by stuff. I have them read and I always say, everything you're reading is an answer to something, but often you don't know what it's an answer to. Like all authors, they're always writing about things they have already read and internalized and sometimes they make this as explicit. Sometimes philosophy papers say this is a response to, and that's very nice because then you know who the, who they're answering. But very often they're not really answering explicitly, but they are answering implicitly to someone.

Jared: Yeah. And you talk about the, the knowledge, who it comes from and also as the one consuming it, right? Like my perspective reading bell hooks, or like our conversation where I said that maybe the, the error messages I'm trying to avoid that sense of shame, you know, it comes from my perspective particularly, um, within, you know, all the context of that.

So,

Felienne: Yeah. And also that like, that's even from this extra layer that you are mentioning. I was reading this book and I think, oh, I also read this book, and what person was I when I read this book? And if I would read it now, it would be so different that it also creates a connection between people that they've, they read the same book.

Jared: Yeah. And. It makes me think of this idea of, we're so deep in like philosophy here. I think, um, the, uh, the idea that, um, you never step in the same river tr- twice and it's like the, this idea that every time you read the book Yeah. It's like you, you have a different perspective and,

Felienne: yeah. And that too is a nice feeling, right? How does it make you, and it can also be a sad feeling if you reread a book and you're like, wow, last time I didn't get anything, but at least I get it now. Um, that too is a feeling that you would rob yourself off if you would read a summary, because certainly, I mean, the summary is not so different if you read it in 10 years, a bit maybe.

But definitely the whole book will be much more different than a summary.

Jared: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. This is great. Well, I. I think we should probably

Felienne: You're like, I wanna have 40 minutes of content. You invited the wrong guest. My good, sir. We did like, I don't know, two and a half hours for Future of Coding. It went until midnight my time. It was crazy.

Jared: Oh, that's great. Yeah. Um, I guess, yeah, so to kind of like, it makes me think of, I guess one other thing about AI, since we're on that topic. Um, and really there are no, no limitations, only the ones that we set. So, uh, you mentioned in one of those, um, newsletters that there's this article, I think it's called "The Age of Abundance".

Felienne: Oh, it's so good. Everyone should read it. I love it.

Jared: I, I don't remember the author's name. Do you?

Felienne: Laura Preston.

Jared: Laura Preston. Yes. So, um, I read that last night and

I, I don't know if it like, literally made a physical change, but like I started feeling sick after reading it.

Felienne: no, I get it.

Jared: Um, and, and I, I might've just been, you know, we were out right before, we're in like a flooding right now, but yeah.

But I might actually be sick, but I feel like it really gave me this. Um, and so I guess to folks, the, the idea is this journalist Laura Preston goes to this conference in Chattanooga, I believe. Um, and it's about AI and just goes and like, talks to different people at different points. Um, her role in this conference is to be the

Felienne: Contrarian,

Jared: yes.

Contrarian at the end. Um, sort of like a token. Like we, yeah, we, we brought somebody who disagrees and Yeah. Um, but anyway, yeah, just reading that it really gave me this, um, not a good feeling, but I think maybe helped me, uh, helped verbalize the way that I do feel sometimes when, when thinking about some of these things.

So it's a good read and, we'll, we'll put it in the show notes. Felienne, what are your thoughts about it?

Felienne: About, uh, the essay you

mean? Yes. Yeah. I mean, it is so good. You can, you can continue reading it. And I think what's what's best about it is, is that it captures so well how AI people, or AI creators or people that excitingly use AI, how they think, like, what is the culture that they're coming from? And this is this question that I've sort of become accidentally obsessed with by, by building Hedy mainly, but the rest of my career before it as well.

What, what culture do we have? What are the things we value? And, and sort of coming back to the smartphone story in, in Preston's essay. It's so clear that these people don't care about attention, about noticing about existing in the world with other people. This lingo, I dunno if this is like literally in the piece, but it is about like building a second brain or expanding your minds.

It's like, but, but I already have a mind, I like my mind and I want this one mind and this one body that I have that are connected to each other, to, to exist in this world. And the, there's this feminist essay that I really, really like. Or actually it's a book of a lot of essays. It's called In Praise of Messy Lives by Katie Roiphe.

It's, it's so much fun. It has nothing to do with AI, I promise, but it is in praise of messy lives. And, and she really talks about how a a man and woman and, and 1.7 children, family, how that's so constraining and how that makes life only possible in a certain way. And, and she is praising a messy life. Uh, I think she has like two kids from two different men that she no longer lives with.

And, and this is great, right? She's sort of embracing, this is how life happened for me and maybe I would've envisioned something else. And other people have different things, and that may work for them, but we have to deal with the reality that we are people and that people have bodies and feelings and they do unreasonable things.

And then they, they make up and they have friendships and they have parties, and all of that is your life. And Preston's essay makes it so clear that whatever the culture of AI is, all those things that aren't ideal, right? Wouldn't I also sometimes wish I had no body and no emotions that would be nice and efficient, but that is the way we, we are and that is humanity.

And that's many of the people in, in AI. Again, like in programming, this is not everyone, but it's very clear. Sometimes they say it literally, like Elon Musk says this quite literally. He would rather live in a world in which people have no bodies because you can just upload your brain to the clouds. It's like, no, none of this.

No. Anyway, sorry, I brought up AI. We should have set like trigger warning for AI upcoming.

Jared: Yeah. Well, um, it is messy and life is messy. And AI, I think, I don't know what I think about it yet. It's, it's, um,

Felienne: And that's okay.

Jared: Yeah, it's, um, I think that like all tools, they can be good, used for good and evil things and indifferent things.

Felienne: Yeah.

Jared: Um, and, uh, they are definitely shaped by the, the knowers, right? The, the people in, in power and they're shaped by, um, the culture and the values of those folks.

Felienne: Yeah.

Jared: Um, yeah.

[01:30:10] Picks

Jared: Should we move on to picks.

Felienne: Yes. Let's do it.

Jared: What picks do you have for us today?

Felienne: Well, you brought up "An Age of [Hyper]abundance", so that's cool. Uh, so can I do two books?

Jared: Yes, of course.

Felienne: Okay, just, I was thinking about it because we were talking about Age of Abundance. There's a book by Tamara Kneese called Death Glitch, and it is very good. It is very weird. Um, it is about how technology grapples with death, um, from what happens to your Facebook page when you die, who gets to maintain it, what are digital after lives, what does that mean?

Um, so if, if you're interested in death, I'm sure it's really interesting, but it also is a very concrete way to look at what technology or what Silicon Valley thinks, what are their belief systems, um, in a very concrete case. So it's fun because it has all these very, very interesting questions. Like one part of the book talks about, um, uh, an elderly man dies and his daughter, his two daughters go to his house and, and then the lights turn on.

At 7:00 PM and they turn off again at, I dunno, midnight. And they don't know how to turn it off because it's pre-programmed and, and they don't know how to just stop that. And ultimately they gain access to his Apple ID where it's all connected. And then in that process of also gaining access to his Apple ID, they also find his porn collection and it's is their dad.

So this is so like, but, but this is, this is technology and this made so many great conversation happen in my households because we also have these automatic lights. So I was also telling my husband like, how does that work? Right? I know how it works, but I mean, how do I get access to your, to your things to turn off the lights and Alexa that's under your, under your account.

Um, so it's these great, great, interesting questions and it's just these fun quotes, air quotes, anecdote like one f to the other, we're like, wow, that makes me think, wow, I had never thought of that. And in the under current of this book is how does technology create things? So I can definitely recommend it, even if it's also a bit weird.

So that was one. Can I move on to the other one?

Jared: Yes, of

Felienne: Yeah. So the other one is a very, very tiny book. It's like, I don't know, not even a hundred pages, I'm waving it in the camera, but I guess most people will listen to this. Um, and it's called The Crisis of Narration by, um, Korean-German philosopher called Byung-Chul Han. And sort of the title summarizes the book really well. As, as humanity, we have a crisis of narration, meaning we aren't really encouraged to tell stories. We don't have systems where stories can be easily shared. And I think this book, there were many reasons that I wanted to get rid of my phone, but this book was also one of the reasons where he says something very easy to remember that I really like.

He says that Instagram stories are the opposite of stories. They're not stories. Um, because a story has a beginning and an end and an arc and a story is something that is an experience repackaged. Whereas an Instagram story is not an experience repackaged, it's just an experience. It doesn't require you to pick the most important thing.

You just, you make a picture or you make a tiny video hoppa. And part of humanity is what Han is arguing is reflecting and digesting and repeating an Instagram story. After one day, the story is gone. So it's not a story because a story is something you can repeat and repeat and you can tell in a different shape.

And there's all these wonderful books where you can practice to be a good storyteller, where it's just, you have to tell this story. A guy gets on the bus and he goes home. That's a story. Now you make this story in a hundred different shapes. So stories in them have repetition and change, and you tell me your story.

You already told me so many stories today that I now also own, and I can take your stories and I can make them my own. And then it's like, yeah, you can do that on Instagram stories. I can take your story and and make more story out of it. But it's not interaction, it's not noticing. It's not adapting and repackaging in a meaningful sense. Um, and then the book is a bit more bleak. I think maybe I'm mildly more hopeful that this can easily be fixed because we can still change and we can make stories. And this, the book definitely was the reason that I started my weekly newsletter, um, because I thought, I have so many stories to tell and I want to put them somewhere and not on social media.

I want to put them on my own website that I own, um, because that also matters to me because that's also part of my story. Anyway, that it was a great inspiration and it's very thin. You can, you can sit down if you do not own a smartphone, you can sit down and you can read it in one reading.

Jared: Okay. Yeah. So this book about this sort of death or like maybe temporary, hopefully, um, uh, of, of stories or narration. Hmm, yeah. Makes me, um, makes me think about the, the way that we tell ourselves stories, but then when you talk about the interaction of, it makes me think about how when it's put online, everyone has a way of interpreting it in their own way, right?

But it's not, like you said, it's like if I tell a story, I might tell it in one way to you and another way to a different person. And there's a lot of context there and there's a lot of, uh, of, um, communication and like connection, I guess is, is the, the biggest thing, right? Of like,

Felienne: yeah. And it requires effort also, on the other side, if you tell me a story, I have to pay attention, and even if it's a written story, a lot of people like practice reading stories. Oh, what do you think the author meant here? Oh, why would he write this? That it's active work that costs takes energy to read something deeply.

Jared: Yeah. That's great. I'll put that in the show notes as well as Death Glitch and of course all the other things that we've been talking about. Um,

Felienne: I hope you wrote them down.

Jared: I may be asking, uh, for help with some of them at

Felienne: Yeah, that's okay.

Jared: um, so did you have any other picks or you said there were two?

Felienne: Oh yeah, I can. I can do more, but I think this is enough. My students always tell me that every week in lecture I say one of my favorite books and then I do two or three of that a week. And then at one point, one of my students said, Felienne, they're all your favorite books. You cannot say every week, this is your favorite book.

Just give us one book and the next week, one more book. So I think those two will do.

Jared: Alright, sounds good. Um, well, I have a book that, um, I pick, and I picked this before, it's called The End of This Day's Business. Um, the cover is not very, um, intriguing, but it's, the subtitle is a Feminist Utopia. Uh, it's a novel by Catherine Burdekin. I'm not sure if I pronounce the name correctly. Um, but it's, um, it's set about 4,000 years in the future and it's told, um, it's a third person narrative, but the, the, there's two main characters.

One is, um, this mother. Who has a child and her is adult child. Um, and, um, they're sort of talking, but then there's a lot of third person narrative about sort of how it arrived at this point and this point being where the world is ruled by females, by women, and that men are in a sort of their own utopia, but just like an ignorant bliss, you know, um, version of the world.

And it's really interesting because it was written in mid thirties, I think 1935. And so the context is very much, um, you know, world War I Is is over. Um, we're looking at World War ii. Um, and, it's a, a, a kind of a, a, a bleak view from that historical perspective, but it's like, well, what if. This happened, right?

Like what if, what if the world changed in this way? Um, and you know, I guess if you sort of just left it there, you might think, well, that's not fair, that's not, you know, a balanced, um, civilization. But the, the book has an interesting way of sort of saying, like the mother in this case, basically deciding that I don't think this is a balanced view of the world either.

Um, it's been helpful and it's certainly been better than the, you know, the, the world that we've come from. But, um, it's still not the way that I think it should be. And so she goes on to sort of explain to her son who is, you know, like all other men has been ignorant of the way that the world has been, talks about the history of sort of this.

Male heg- hege—, you know, male dominated world. Um, and then this sort of transition and, um, you know, talks about the wars and, you know, from the context historical at that point. Um, and then sort of imagines this transition and then says, but you know, this isn't the way it should be. I'm telling you, in order to, start the process of trying to, to improve this.

So it's very interesting, I think, um, to, uh, to get like a, for me, it was the first book that I read on feminism, and it was so interesting because it, it didn't like shout at me, right? Like, it didn't tell me that I was like doing something wrong. Um, it was set in this like sort of alternate or like future.

World where you can sort of take yourself out of it, but then like imagine it from this context of her and from all like the history that the third person narrator explains throughout. Um, but I think there's a couple of quotes in here that I think, um, might, uh, might make people interested in it a little more than me just kind of rambling about what I think it's about.

Um, one is quote,

they were like, people who had with terrific toil got themselves up a precipice to a flat place where they could rest and take their breath, but they couldn't rest because what was on top of the precipice simply scared them to death.

And then that same, um, skips ahead a little bit,

but because they had conquered nature, the life they had lived struggling up the precipice was now no longer possible. They were on the flat place. There was a horrible dark wood at the top of the cliff where they felt they must be lost. Is there any wonder that hoards of them tried to go back down the precipice, but now they find that the ropes, which served them so nobly to help them up the cliff are rotten. The religion, the unquestioned dominance of men over women and one class over another class, all the ropes have been rotted inside.

So that's from page all from page 67. And then, um, there's another one. It's about sort of patriotism and fascism. It says, quote,

"they caught their mental diseases, patriots, patriotism and fascism and death hysteria in just the same way. It was a morbid growth on the natural love a woman has for the language, climate and kind of country in which she passed her childhood.

What the old men meant by patriotism." Old men here referring to men before women ruled in this kind of like, yeah. Futuristic view. Looking back at the 1930s, um, "what the old men meant by patriotism was a feeling that the people of their own country were better than the people of others, and therefore the others were contemptible and hateful.

And it was not wrong to kill them. Uh, patriotism implies fear and the greater the patriotism, the greater the panic. So in those days when a country really had the disease badly, the people would believe, think, say, and do the most senseless and amazing things."

It's all from page 65. So, yeah. Um, it's a good read.

It's hard to find. Um, I don't know that like you'd find a new copy. Um, I've only found used copies, but, um, anyone, if you're, um, curious, I will try to find a link to, to where I got it. Um, thrift books is a good place to look. Um, but yeah, um, that's the only pick that I have

Felienne: Oh, it sounds awesome. I had never heard of it before. So Great.

Jared: Yeah. Um, I, uh, I think this has been a really, uh, full of wonder, you know, a, a good conversation. Um, I didn't mean to, I feel like that quote's there at the end kind of brought it down there. Um, but, but, uh, I thank you for your time. Um, I think this has, uh, been a really useful conversation and thanks to Katja Mordaunt

Felienne: Yes, for, putting us in touch.

Jared: yeah, for making the connection there.

Um, Wolfgang Schuster who, um, suggested that I reach out, um, in the first place. And thanks Felienne for coming to Elm Town, tjuus.

Felienne: Yeah, thanks for having me.