One site, but this is the last one in the map. So I guess next week I'll get to see the statistics on this latest map. It's sadly nonpictoral, or at least the last few weren't. All bar graphs and jargon. The jargon is occasionally exactly the opposite meaning of what I'd expect from the word, too. That makes it difficult to learn and understand.
I guess LENS isn't unique in that regard. Programming languages, which I studied in college, are the same way. Sometimes the terminology makes sense, but just as often it doesn't at all. But it made sense to someone, when they wrote it that way. For example, in Java programming, you can specify a number to be used in your code. Let's call it X, harking back to algebra. X is a number. In code, you announce that X exists, and then give it a value. But wait, there are half a dozen types of numbers! There's "int," "double," "byte," "short," "long," and "float." All of those are different types of numbers. Now instead of just saying, "I have a number X," you have to say, "I have a <type> number X." All of those types are used in code, and you need to know what each type is and what applications it's best for. Can you tell by the words what each type is for? I couldn't, when I was learning. The only one that immediately made sense on explanation was "int," and that only because it's short for integer, which I already learned about in math class. The rest I had to learn by rote, because they made no sense to me. I assume whoever designed Java had a background in higher mathematics and science, and I don't.
There's also legalese, as I've come to refer to the fine print on software agreements, legal papers, and other absurdly long and complicated documents. As far as I can tell, the people who write those things exist in an entirely different dimension. I try to read everything I sign, but I have limits. I won't spend four hours reading a 50 page software license agreement when I have work to do. I just don't have the time (or the interest, if I'm being honest). But people do read those, and more than that, people write them. I assume a lot of copy/pasting is involved, or at least fairly standardized language and sections, but I've never studied it. Yet somehow the standards for legal papers, software agreements, and fine print came into being.
Learning about LENS, programming, and legalese seems to me to be kind of like perspective-taking. Only instead of living, breathing human beings able to explain themselves, you have only textbooks and shrugs of "that's just how it is." A good teacher for any subject can help, but even so. Which reminds me in a short of roundabout way, that some professionals believe people on the autism spectrum can't do perspective-taking (and don't have theory of mind). And I shake my head. Ridiculous. People on the autism spectrum might have a harder time with perspective-taking (because people can be way more complicated than any devised system), but we definitely can do it. I wouldn't be here trying to bridge the gaps between people on the spectrum and people not on the spectrum if I couldn't see things from a perspective besides my own.
I guess LENS isn't unique in that regard. Programming languages, which I studied in college, are the same way. Sometimes the terminology makes sense, but just as often it doesn't at all. But it made sense to someone, when they wrote it that way. For example, in Java programming, you can specify a number to be used in your code. Let's call it X, harking back to algebra. X is a number. In code, you announce that X exists, and then give it a value. But wait, there are half a dozen types of numbers! There's "int," "double," "byte," "short," "long," and "float." All of those are different types of numbers. Now instead of just saying, "I have a number X," you have to say, "I have a <type> number X." All of those types are used in code, and you need to know what each type is and what applications it's best for. Can you tell by the words what each type is for? I couldn't, when I was learning. The only one that immediately made sense on explanation was "int," and that only because it's short for integer, which I already learned about in math class. The rest I had to learn by rote, because they made no sense to me. I assume whoever designed Java had a background in higher mathematics and science, and I don't.
There's also legalese, as I've come to refer to the fine print on software agreements, legal papers, and other absurdly long and complicated documents. As far as I can tell, the people who write those things exist in an entirely different dimension. I try to read everything I sign, but I have limits. I won't spend four hours reading a 50 page software license agreement when I have work to do. I just don't have the time (or the interest, if I'm being honest). But people do read those, and more than that, people write them. I assume a lot of copy/pasting is involved, or at least fairly standardized language and sections, but I've never studied it. Yet somehow the standards for legal papers, software agreements, and fine print came into being.
Learning about LENS, programming, and legalese seems to me to be kind of like perspective-taking. Only instead of living, breathing human beings able to explain themselves, you have only textbooks and shrugs of "that's just how it is." A good teacher for any subject can help, but even so. Which reminds me in a short of roundabout way, that some professionals believe people on the autism spectrum can't do perspective-taking (and don't have theory of mind). And I shake my head. Ridiculous. People on the autism spectrum might have a harder time with perspective-taking (because people can be way more complicated than any devised system), but we definitely can do it. I wouldn't be here trying to bridge the gaps between people on the spectrum and people not on the spectrum if I couldn't see things from a perspective besides my own.
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