The interviewer is partly right, and students who have a natural aptitude[1] for programming often recognize this: Code is meaningless. At the application level, you may have something that looks like an image. Underneath, you may represent it with numbers. Numbers, however, are also a fiction represented with bits. The meaning is based entirely on one's interpretation. Creating a mapping between meaningless formalism and meaningful interpretation is the principle obstacle to learning to program.
I understand the point the author is trying to make, and the interviewer in the video has not grasped the above. To answer his concern, ask him what meaning does the letter 'd' have? Next to none, but in composition it can provide quite a lot of meaning. (This is an argument from Hofstadter.)
[1]: I had a study/source for this, but I can't find it.
Comments
The interviewer is partly right, and students who have a natural aptitude[1] for programming often recognize this: Code is meaningless. At the application level, you may have something that looks like an image. Underneath, you may represent it with numbers. Numbers, however, are also a fiction represented with bits. The meaning is based entirely on one's interpretation. Creating a mapping between meaningless formalism and meaningful interpretation is the principle obstacle to learning to program.
I understand the point the author is trying to make, and the interviewer in the video has not grasped the above. To answer his concern, ask him what meaning does the letter 'd' have? Next to none, but in composition it can provide quite a lot of meaning. (This is an argument from Hofstadter.)
[1]: I had a study/source for this, but I can't find it.