Mental models of computers

In the old movie "The Matrix", there is a scene in which the character Cipher is looking at code and another character, Neo, asks why he looks at the code and not the presentation-level view. Cipher explains that the code is better, because the presentation level is designed to fool us humans. At this the moment that Neo re-thinks his view of computers.

That scene (some years after the debut of the movie) got me thinking about my view of computers.

My mental model of computers is based on text. That is, I think of a computer as a device that processes text and talks to other devices that process text. The CPU processes text, terminals display text to users and accept text via the keyboard, printers print text, and disks store text. (Disks also store data in binary form, but for me that is simply a strange form of text.)

This model is perhaps not surprising, as my early experiences with computers were with text-oriented devices and text-oriented programs. Those computers included a DEC PDP-8 running BASIC; a DECsystem-10 running TOPS-10 with FORTRAN, Pascal, and a few other text-oriented languages; a Heathkit H-89 running HDOS (an operating system much like DEC's RT-11) and BASIC, assembly language, FORTRAN, C, and Pascal.

The devices I used to interact with computers were text terminals. The PDP-8 used Teletype ASR-33s, which had large mechanical keyboards (way more mechanical than today's mechanical keyboards) and printed text on a long continuous roll of paper. The DECsystem-10 and the H-89 both used CRT terminals (no paper) and mostly text with a few special graphics characters.

In those formative years, all of my experience with computers was for programming. That is, the primary purpose of a computer was to learn programming and to do programming. Keep in mind that this was before much of the technical world we have today. There was no Google, no Netflix, no Windows. Spreadsheets were the new thing, and even they were text-oriented. The few graphs that existed in computing were made on special (read that as "expensive and rare") equipment that few people had.

In my mind, back then, computers were for programming and programming was a process that used text and the computers used text so they were a good match for programming.

Programming today is still a text-oriented process. The "source code" of programs, the version that we humans write and that computers either compile or interpret into executed code, is text. One can write programs in the Windows "Notepad" program. (One must save them to disk and then tell the compiler to convert that saved file, but that is simply the process to get a program to run.)

So what does this have to do with "The Matrix" and specifically why is that one scene important?

It strikes me that while my experience with computers started with programming and text-oriented devices, not every (especially now-a-days) has that same experience. Today, people are introduced to computers with cell phones, or possibly tablets. A few may get their first experience on a laptop running Windows or macOS.

All of these are different from my text-based introduction. And all of these are graphics-based. People today, when they first encounter computers, encounter graphical interfaces, and use computers for many things other than programming. People today must have a very different mental model about computers. I saw computers as boxes that processed text. Today, most people see computers as boxes that process graphics, and sound, and voice.

What a shock it must be for someone today to start to learn programming. They are taken out of their comfortable mental model and forced to use text. Some classes begin with simple "hello, world" programs that not only use text source code but also produce text output. How primitive this must seem to people familiar with graphical interfaces! (Some classes begin with simple programs that present web pages, which is a bit better in that the output is familiar, but the source code is still text.)

But this different mental model may be a problem for people entering the programming world. They are moving from a graphical world to a text-based world, and that transition can be difficult. Modern IDE programs ease the transition by allowing many operations in a graphical environment, but the source code remains text.

Do people revolt? Do they reject the text-oriented approach to source code? I imagine that some find the change in mental models difficult, perhaps too difficult, and they abandon programming.

A better question is: Why has no one created a graphical-oriented programming language? Not just a programming language in an IDE -- we already have those. I'm thinking of a new approach to programming, something very different from the text approach of today.

It might be that programming has formed a self-reinforcing loop. Only programmers can create new programming languages and programming environments, and these programmers (obviously) are comfortable with the text paradigm. Perhaps the see no need to make such a large change.

Or it might be that the text model is the best model for programming. Programming is the organization of ideas into clearly specified collections and operations, and text handles that task better than graphics. Visual representations of collections and operations can be clear, and they can be ambiguous. (But then, text representations can also be ambiguous, so I'm not sure that there is a clear advantage for text.)

Or possibly we simply have not seen the right person to come along, with the right mix of technical skills, graphics abilities, and desire for a visual programming language. It may be that graphical programming languages are possible, and that we just haven't invented them.

I want to think it is the last of these reasons, because that means there is a lot more for us to learn about programming. The introduction of a visual programming language will open new vistas for programming, and applications, and computing.

I want to think that there will always be something new for the programmers.