Why the Net Is So Libertarian is an old essay, from 1995, when the Net was new — and full of computer scientists:
Let me tell a story that is typical of those I heard from the TAs who worked for me at the computing center. A student comes up to the TA and says that his program isn’t working. The numbers it prints out are all wrong. The first number is twice what it should be, the second is four times what it should be,and the others are even more screwed up. The student says, ‘Maybe I should divide this first number by 2 and the second by 4. That would help, right?’ No, it wouldn’t, the TA explains. The problem is not in the printing routine. The problem is with the calculating routine. Modifying the printing routine will produce a program with TWO problems rather than one. But the student doesn’t understand this (I claim because he isn’t reasoning about what state his program should be in as it executes various parts of the program). The student goes away to work on it. He comes back half an hour later and says he’s closer, but the numbers are still wrong. The TA looks at it and seems puzzled by the fact that the first two numbers are right but the others don’t match. ‘Oh,’ the student explains, ‘I added those 2 lines of code you suggested to divide the first number by 2 and the second by 4.’ The TA points out that he didn’t suggest the lines of code, but the student just shrugs his shoulders and says, ‘Whatever.’ The TA endeavors to get the student to think about what change is necessary, but the student obviously doesn’t get it. The TA has a long line of similarly confused students, so he suggests that the student go sit down and think through his calculating procedure and exactly what it’s supposed to be doing. Half an hour later the student is back again. ‘While I was looking over the calculating procedure, a friend of mine who is a CS major came by and said my loop was all screwed up. I fixed it the way he suggested, but the numbers are still wrong. The first number is half what it’s supposed to be and the second is one-fourth what it’s supposed to be, but the others are okay.’ The TA considers for a moment whether he should bring up the student on an honor code charge for receiving inappropriate help, but decides that it isn’t worth it (especially since that line of similarly confused students is now twice what it was an hour ago). He asks the student whether he still has those lines of code in the printing routine that divide by 2 and 4 before printing. ‘Oh yeah,’ the student exclaims, ‘those lines you said I should put in. That must be the problem.’ The TA once more politely points out that he didn’t suggest the two lines of code, but the student again shrugs and says, ‘Whatever. Thanks, dude!’The student in my hypothetical story displays the classic mistake of treating symptoms rather than solving problems. The student knows the program doesn’t work, so he tries to find a way to make it appear to work a little better. As in my example, without a proper model of computation, such fixes are likely to make the program worse rather than better. How can the student fix his program if he can’t reason in his head about what it is supposed to do versus what it is actually doing? He can’t. But for many people (I dare say for most people), they simply do not think of their program the way a programmer does. As a result, it is impossible for a programmer to explain to such a person how to find the problem in their code. I’m convinced after years of patiently trying to explain this to novices that most are just not used to thinking this way while a small group of other students seem to think this way automatically, without me having to explain it to them.
Let me try to start relating this to libertarian philosophy. Just as programmers have a model of computation, libertarians have what I call a model of interaction.