"THE CODE"

Amos · April 2016

JamilaRaj wrote: »

Judging from the state of the game, I presume The Code is something like Elder Scrolls and not even ZOS employees dare to gaze into The Code for too long, or else it could gaze into them and make them blind.

Truer words have never been spoken, staring into code for long periods of time to discern its mystical meaning does indeed leave one blind... O.O

Gedalya · April 2016

Every ESOTU player is a Senior Software Engineer; we all know what we are talking about when it comes to "the code".

Asmael · April 2016

vamp_emily wrote: »

This code should fix the problem with ESO


private bool FinalRoutine()
{
    if (profile.username == "vamp.emily")
   {
         BuffStamRegen(5000);
         BuffUserShield(1000);
         BuffMagicRegen(5000);
         BuffWeaponDamage(10000);
         BuffHealth(1000000);
   }
}

All hail OOP:

for(User user : playerbase.getUsers())
{
    if(user.getAccountName() == "Asmael")
    {
         /**
           * Having all alts being emperors of all campaigns
           * at once is legit. Yes it is.
           */
         for(Character character : user.getCharacters())
         {
             character.setEmperorForCampaign(true,
                 campaignList.getCampaignByName("Blackwater Blade"));
             character.setEmperorForCampaign(true,
                 campaignList.getCampaignByName("Azura's Star"));
             character.setEmperorForCampaign(true,
                 campaignList.getCampaignByName("Ebony Blade"));
             character.setEmperorForCampaign(true,
                 campaignList.getCampaignByName("Spell Breaker"));

             // Who cares about Truelag...
         }
    }
}

vamp_emily · April 2016

Asmael wrote: »

-snip-

Lol, if we keep going we will have an AWESOME program and ZOS might hire us.

Xeven · April 2016

smacx250 wrote: »
Actually, "punctuation errors" aren't all that uncommon, and can escape compilation. Take this simple "C" example:
if (a == b)
    c = d;
    e = f;
if (h == j)
    .
    .
    .
This is actually not a terribly uncommon type of mistake (though it can be less obvious when there are nested blocks and statements in a larger code structure - particularly ones that may span a single page). Many programmers don't like putting {} around the body of an if statement that has only a single statement. However, later on someone may need to add another statement to the "if" body, and "forget" to add in the "punctuation" of "{" and "}" to create a multi-statement body. The indentation of the "e = f" that makes it look like it may be in the "if" body means nothing to the compiler - it only serves to mislead reviewers (is it just an indent error, or is it a logic error?). The code compiles correctly, and without warnings, but almost certainly does not do what they intended.

Actually, this kind of thing can only happen if you write your code in f***ing notepad. Cmon guys get real. This is a triple A title in the year 2016 not some neckbeard trying to learn java in his underwear.

Yes, you can compile s*** if you write s*** with the equivalent technology of a hammer and a f****ing chisel.

Are you trying to prove how smart you are to a forum full of ESO players? Nobody gives a s*** and it actually just makes you look dumb.

99% of the time if there is a "punctuation" error or a typo, your IDE, your compiler, or both will catch it. The bugs we experience with ESO are logical bugs, not f***ing typos, that's all I was saying.

Miszou · April 2016

Asmael wrote: »
Miszou wrote: »
Xeven wrote: »

wayfarerx wrote: »

Xeven wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

I would love to look at the innards of this game. I have a fairly good idea about how game engines work, at least in theory. I have some experience in making mods for other TES games so I also have a good idea of how it all works together. What I want to know is how they can change one thing but create a issue somewhere else.

It would be nice to sit down with the editor they use for just a little while to poke around and see what's up.

It would be nice to see the gears turning. Keep in mind though, a bug in the code can be something as small as a punctuation error.

Ive heard if unrelated code interfering with each other based on the simplest seeming errors like this. Which incidentally can also be why they are so hard to track down and fix.

The code wont even compile into something executable if there is a semicolon missing. The bugs we experience are not punctuation errors.

In certain languages you can do some pretty wild stuff with punctuation, just sayin'.

ESO is written mostly in C++

Miszou wrote: »

Xeven wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

I would love to look at the innards of this game. I have a fairly good idea about how game engines work, at least in theory. I have some experience in making mods for other TES games so I also have a good idea of how it all works together. What I want to know is how they can change one thing but create a issue somewhere else.

It would be nice to sit down with the editor they use for just a little while to poke around and see what's up.

It would be nice to see the gears turning. Keep in mind though, a bug in the code can be something as small as a punctuation error.

Ive heard if unrelated code interfering with each other based on the simplest seeming errors like this. Which incidentally can also be why they are so hard to track down and fix.

The code wont even compile into something executable if there is a semicolon missing. The bugs we experience are not punctuation errors.

Not entirely true....

if ( 1 == 2 );
{
// Yep, this gets executed, even though the test is obviously false
}

Lol first of all there is no semicolon outside of the brackets of a c#/c++ if statement. That wouldn't even compile. Furthermore, if there were actual code inside the brackets, it NEVER gets executed BECAUSE the statement is always false.

This is like first day first year programming stuff dude and you just failed miserably... I dont know what youre trying to prove other than you have no freekin idea what you're talking about.

Uh oh. You might want to check yourself. Here's a Windows C# console "app" that you might find interesting. You can compile and run it in Visual Studio Express, which is free. So no excuses.
using System;
namespace Xeven
{
  class Program
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      if (1 == 2) ;
      {
        Console.WriteLine("Oops. Looks like Xeven is wrong.");
      }
    }
  }
}
I could give you a C or C++ version too if you like, but I really can't be bothered.
Except that it pops a warning.

Not to mention that various code quality management tools exist, and would throw you a nice red cross with "Major" next to it. I don't know about you, but I'm not allowed to have even a single Major issue when delivering a software, which includes no empty "if" statements.

Minor issues include using tabulation instead of spaces, not following naming conventions, consistent indentation... For short: nothing that dealss with behavior. The lines you wrote are an application behavior issue.

Correct.

But my original post was meant largely as a tongue-in-cheek as a response to someone that a said that the bugs we experience are not punctuation errors. Obviously, it wasn't a "real world" example, just a silly demonstration of what a compiler will allow if you're not paying attention.

If I actually found something like that nonsense in a code review, there would be a team "discussion" very shortly afterwards...

themdogesbite · April 2016

Well i don't know anything about codeing overall, but even i can manage to figure out that something is severly wrong when you manage to re-introduce old "bugs" from several months back, more then once.

Shunravi · April 2016

Miszou wrote: »
Asmael wrote: »
Miszou wrote: »
Xeven wrote: »

wayfarerx wrote: »

Xeven wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

I would love to look at the innards of this game. I have a fairly good idea about how game engines work, at least in theory. I have some experience in making mods for other TES games so I also have a good idea of how it all works together. What I want to know is how they can change one thing but create a issue somewhere else.

It would be nice to sit down with the editor they use for just a little while to poke around and see what's up.

It would be nice to see the gears turning. Keep in mind though, a bug in the code can be something as small as a punctuation error.

Ive heard if unrelated code interfering with each other based on the simplest seeming errors like this. Which incidentally can also be why they are so hard to track down and fix.

The code wont even compile into something executable if there is a semicolon missing. The bugs we experience are not punctuation errors.

In certain languages you can do some pretty wild stuff with punctuation, just sayin'.

ESO is written mostly in C++

Miszou wrote: »

Xeven wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

I would love to look at the innards of this game. I have a fairly good idea about how game engines work, at least in theory. I have some experience in making mods for other TES games so I also have a good idea of how it all works together. What I want to know is how they can change one thing but create a issue somewhere else.

It would be nice to sit down with the editor they use for just a little while to poke around and see what's up.

It would be nice to see the gears turning. Keep in mind though, a bug in the code can be something as small as a punctuation error.

Ive heard if unrelated code interfering with each other based on the simplest seeming errors like this. Which incidentally can also be why they are so hard to track down and fix.

The code wont even compile into something executable if there is a semicolon missing. The bugs we experience are not punctuation errors.

Not entirely true....

if ( 1 == 2 );
{
// Yep, this gets executed, even though the test is obviously false
}

Lol first of all there is no semicolon outside of the brackets of a c#/c++ if statement. That wouldn't even compile. Furthermore, if there were actual code inside the brackets, it NEVER gets executed BECAUSE the statement is always false.

This is like first day first year programming stuff dude and you just failed miserably... I dont know what youre trying to prove other than you have no freekin idea what you're talking about.

Uh oh. You might want to check yourself. Here's a Windows C# console "app" that you might find interesting. You can compile and run it in Visual Studio Express, which is free. So no excuses.
using System;
namespace Xeven
{
  class Program
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      if (1 == 2) ;
      {
        Console.WriteLine("Oops. Looks like Xeven is wrong.");
      }
    }
  }
}
I could give you a C or C++ version too if you like, but I really can't be bothered.
Except that it pops a warning.

Not to mention that various code quality management tools exist, and would throw you a nice red cross with "Major" next to it. I don't know about you, but I'm not allowed to have even a single Major issue when delivering a software, which includes no empty "if" statements.

Minor issues include using tabulation instead of spaces, not following naming conventions, consistent indentation... For short: nothing that dealss with behavior. The lines you wrote are an application behavior issue.
Correct.

But my original post was meant largely as a tongue-in-cheek as a response to someone that a said that the bugs we experience are not punctuation errors. Obviously, it wasn't a "real world" example, just a silly demonstration of what a compiler will allow if you're not paying attention.

If I actually found something like that nonsense in a code review, there would be a team "discussion" very shortly afterwards...

I love throwing pebbles...

LostScot · April 2016

scorpiodog wrote: »

I'm genuinely interested if the game code is available anywhere for review.

Not that I want to review it myself, but I see so many people referring to "the code" in their forum posts that I wonder if they have actually seen the code with comment and know how to make sense of it - or if they are just talking a bunch of BS.

I suppose people who make addons need to have some kind of access to "the code", but then again in most projects when people offer suggestions to improve "the code" they upload the code with comments so the other programmers actually know what they want, how to implement it, and a way for others to test if the idea will actually work.

So are people referring to "the code" actually talking from knowledge or just wildly speculating about something they've never seen?

Doesn't take much effort to decompile a binary (executable or library) into human-readable code, especially with a tonne of tools available that can take the tedium out of the process. Most of those tools are open-source as well, so readily available to anyone who is technically minded.

I use a variety of tools for reverse-engineering third-party code, everything from decompilers to packet capture and analysis suites. The average Joe can download Microsoft Message Analyzer, Sysinternals' Process Monitor (not to be confused with their highly popular Process Explorer), Telerik's Fiddler, and Microsoft Visual Studio Express (to attach to a process and get standard assembler debugging output), and start reviewing what's going on behind the scenes for themselves. The real issue is taking the time to decipher and understand the output, as a developer I have to ask myself "what will I gain by reviewing how ESO is utilising my hardware?" Truth is there's very little for me to learn from their code itself, but what is very rewarding is understanding where the bottlenecks occur while ESO is running and why those bottlenecks are occurring.

Add-on authors have access to the LUA code for ESO's user interface. This is very different from the actual game code, and is better thought of as an asset that the game code utilises. See http://esodata.uesp.net/current/index.html for more info.

Unless someone is tagged as ESO staff on these forums it is very likely that they have never seen the original uncompiled ESO code, but don't let that fool you. Any savvy developer can quickly interpret generated code from a decompiled executable or library and in many cases even just looking at how the game utilises underlying hardware is enough to tell a developer roughly how certain features have been coded.

Nine times out of ten though if someone claims they've seen the code, they're going to be talking BS just like you surmised

LostScot · April 2016

SirAndy wrote: »

Because to me it's obvious that the people who are "elbow-deep in the system" at ZOS are way out of their depth and have been since the very beginning.

I'm coming up on my 3 year mark playing this game and i was part of the closed 24/7 Psijic Order test group. This game is just as buggy as it was 3 years ago. Every update introduces more bugs, even some that were previously fixed are re-introduced.
Heck, even the anniversary cake is bugged!

I personally submitted hundreds of bug reports during my time in the closed beta. I've talked to some of the developers. I made many, many suggestions. I even applied for a job at ZOS because i felt i could be of use.

I do this kind of stuff for a living and have for the last 35 years, including many years in the gaming industry.

I warned them about their Client/Server implementation months before launch with detailed descriptions on how to fix some of the problems. They ignored my advice and then spent months trying to patch the bots out of the game, in turn introducing (parts of) the lag we all have come to love so much.

You sound like the sort of developer I'd employ, and with your approach and attitude towards software development you'd fit right in at my place of work!

Frustrating that you've been reporting bugs for almost 3 years and yet many of those bugs persist. Got to appreciate your dedication though, I gave up after reporting the dupe bug many times in beta with steps to reproduce, highlighted where in the process the dupe was being allowed to occur and how they could alter the exchange process to prevent the dupe from ever occurring. Once the game went live with the bug I reported it several more times and after a couple of weeks of seeing the bug being abused I eventually resorted to posting the details on these forums.

I have to concur with your opinion that some of the current ESO developers are way out of their depth. It feels like somewhere along the way the lead developer and lead architect have left the team and their knowledge wasn't adequately shared by way of peer code reviews etc. That leaves the current crop of developers having to reverse-engineer the codebase to acquire that knowledge and if under pressure of time constraints potentially having to guess at how a feature should be utilised. Whatever the reasons, it seems like their understanding of how best to utilise available resources is superseded by their notion of upping the resources available to them (increasing minimum requirements to run the game etc).

OrangeTheCat · April 2016

Xeven wrote: »

Not entirely true....

if ( 1 == 2 );
{
// Yep, this gets executed, even though the test is obviously false
}

Lol first of all there is no semicolon outside of the brackets of a c#/c++ if statement. That wouldn't even compile. Furthermore, if there were actual code inside the brackets, it NEVER gets executed BECAUSE the statement is always false.

This is like first day first year programming stuff dude and you just failed miserably... I dont know what youre trying to prove other than you have no freekin idea what you're talking about.

Umm, yes, it does compile; I just tried it.

VisualStudio 2015, C# 6.

And the conditional does evaluate to true.

---

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
if (1 == 2) ;
{
// Yep, this gets executed, even though the test is obviously false
}
}
}
}

Danksta · April 2016

If you ever see me saying/typing anything about the code I'm talking about "The Bro Code", and I assume that's what everyone else is talking about too. Right?

Xeven · April 2016

OrangeTheCat wrote: »

Umm, yes, it does compile; I just tried it.

VisualStudio 2015, C# 6.

And the conditional does evaluate to true.

We've already went over this. The condition does NOT evaluate to true. One does not equal two, no matter what planet you come from. The code is outside of the condition entirely because of the errant semicolon. The VS IDE and compiler also threw a fit about it, but you chose to ignore it.

smacx250 · April 2016

Xeven wrote: »
smacx250 wrote: »
Actually, "punctuation errors" aren't all that uncommon, and can escape compilation. Take this simple "C" example:
if (a == b)
    c = d;
    e = f;
if (h == j)
    .
    .
    .
This is actually not a terribly uncommon type of mistake (though it can be less obvious when there are nested blocks and statements in a larger code structure - particularly ones that may span a single page). Many programmers don't like putting {} around the body of an if statement that has only a single statement. However, later on someone may need to add another statement to the "if" body, and "forget" to add in the "punctuation" of "{" and "}" to create a multi-statement body. The indentation of the "e = f" that makes it look like it may be in the "if" body means nothing to the compiler - it only serves to mislead reviewers (is it just an indent error, or is it a logic error?). The code compiles correctly, and without warnings, but almost certainly does not do what they intended.
Actually, this kind of thing can only happen if you write your code in f***ing notepad. Cmon guys get real. This is a triple A title in the year 2016 not some neckbeard trying to learn java in his underwear.

Yes, you can compile s*** if you write s*** with the equivalent technology of a hammer and a f****ing chisel.

Are you trying to prove how smart you are to a forum full of ESO players? Nobody gives a s*** and it actually just makes you look dumb.

99% of the time if there is a "punctuation" error or a typo, your IDE, your compiler, or both will catch it. The bugs we experience with ESO are logical bugs, not f***ing typos, that's all I was saying.

It's not "smarts" - it's experience. A breath of which you seem to lack for one reason or another. If you google it you will find that this very topic is one that many in the industry have discussed at one point or another (and have various opinions on). That there are very real problems like this is exactly why some languages have been designed to reduce these types of errors, and why compiler and IDE developers have spent the effort to detect and warn about them.

More directly to your question of why I posted on the topic - I generally don't think that people like to be misled, and so I try to correct it when I see it happening. Perhaps you should question your own motivation for posting, given that you are the one spreading the misinformation.

Xeven · April 2016

I pointed out that we have modern compilers and IDEs to deal with these kinds of errors, and stated that the bugs we experience with eso are not "punctuation" errors.

You and someone else deliberately write errant code, ignore compiler and IDE warnings, and get it to compile to "prove" me wrong.

I say that's great, but you ignored your compiler and your IDE.

You point out that this is why modern compilers and IDEs were developed, and claim that I'm spreading misinformation.

***?

JamilaRaj · April 2016

Xeven wrote: »

You and someone else deliberately write errant code, ignore compiler and IDE warnings, and get it to compile to "prove" me wrong.

In 2014, the client was spitting out uncaught exceptions at players (!) for weeks (!!!) before it was fixed (i.e. reverted to the state when red boxes instead of actual objects render silently). So I can not very well imagine ZOS programmers giving a !@#$%^ about compiler warnings. Unless it is something like:

Jeff: hey, dude, I compiled a new build. It throws some compiler warnings.
Bob: *gasps* Omg, call Firor to postpone release.
<moment of silence>
Jeff & Bob: Bwahahahahaaaaa!

Enraged_Tiki_Torch · April 2016

vamp_emily wrote: »

This code should fix the problem with ESO


private bool FinalRoutine()
{
    if (profile.username == "vamp.emily")
   {
         BuffStamRegen(5000);
         BuffUserShield(1000);
         BuffMagicRegen(5000);
         BuffWeaponDamage(10000);
         BuffHealth(1000000);
   }
}

Yeah someone will be very happy, just not you.

And @Xeven didn't bring up while loops.

class Program
     {
     static void Loop()
             {
              int x = 0;
              do
                      {
                       Console.WriteLine(x);
                       x++;
                       } while ( x <= 2 ); <~~ :o 
             }
     }

Just having fun...

yodased · April 2016

Lol just chime in here but folks have already decompiled and broke out all assets of the game like a year ago.

Let's just say the bot writers were a bit ahead of the curve here and there is a reason a very popular "engine" still works to this day.

Google skills will show you the way or ask the guy I was building oghma with

smacx250 · April 2016

Xeven wrote: »

I pointed out that we have modern compilers and IDEs to deal with these kinds of errors, and stated that the bugs we experience with eso are not "punctuation" errors.

You and someone else deliberately write errant code, ignore compiler and IDE warnings, and get it to compile to "prove" me wrong.

I say that's great, but you ignored your compiler and your IDE.

You point out that this is why modern compilers and IDEs were developed, and claim that I'm spreading misinformation.

***?

No, I made the claim that "punctuation errors" that could escape compilation were not all that uncommon, and gave a simple example of a real code problem that is NOT detected by IDE's or compilers. You don't need to take my word if it is a real thing - google "single statement if block bug" and look through the 600K plus hits (and maybe notice the bug by a major software vendor on the first page that affected millions of people). Note that I explained the particular problem and why it may occur, and didn't make any personal comments about you, or refute your assertion about the cause of ESO bugs. The post was done to prevent people from reading yours and leaving with the general thought that such "insignificant" classes of issues couldn't lead to real software bugs - they do. Contrast that to your redacted-profanity filled reply which set about attacking my person.

Lokey0024 · April 2016

It's not really a rule book, more like guidelines...

Merlight · April 2016

Enraged_Tiki_Torch wrote: »

That makes understanding it is the easy part, getting the computer (program) to cooperate with what your trying to tell it do is the hard part. Lots of Problem Solving and lots of Frustration.

That is why bugs take awhile to fix. Not because programmers can't understand the code but because finding a way to get around a bug can take some creative thinking.

You got it reversed. Writing code is easy. Understanding someone else's code (or one's own code months later) is hard.

Finding where bugs lurk takes time -- that's the part where you need to learn and understand the code. Squashing a bug once it's been tracked down is easy.

SirAndy · April 2016

Couple of things about that code:

- You declare the function as bool but never return any value. (A good compiler should catch that)
- You compare against a String which is slow. In order to reduce lag, you should compare against your integer User ID instead. That also would allow you to change your character name without having to recompile the code.
- Your buff values shouldn't be hard-coded to constant values. Instead use multipliers. That allows your buff to keep up with your character progress.

vamp_emily wrote: »

This code should fix the problem with ESO


private bool FinalRoutine()
{
    if (profile.username == "vamp.emily")
   {
         BuffStamRegen(5000);
         BuffUserShield(1000);
         BuffMagicRegen(5000);
         BuffWeaponDamage(10000);
         BuffHealth(1000000);
   }
}

@vamp_emily

Lysette · April 2016

Performance issues are a matter of server performance in most cases, not the client software. An outsider does not have access to the server code whatsoever. If you are an employee of ZOS, you might have access to part of it, but not even all of those have access to it. So it is basically pointless to do any such "investigations", especially because you are not allowed to change it anyways, because it is copyrighted stuff.

wayfarerx · April 2016

Merlight wrote: »

You got it reversed. Writing code is easy. Understanding someone else's code (or one's own code months later) is hard.

A thousand times this. Any hacker can pump out write-only code, the best ones write code you can actually read and understand at a later date; and even then going back and understanding the nuances of old code can be challenging for even the best of the best.

Lysette · April 2016

wayfarerx wrote: »

Merlight wrote: »

You got it reversed. Writing code is easy. Understanding someone else's code (or one's own code months later) is hard.

A thousand times this. Any hacker can pump out write-only code, the best ones write code you can actually read and understand at a later date; and even then going back and understanding the nuances of old code can be challenging for even the best of the best.

This is very true.

If I would not document my code very extensively, I would struggle with it already a few months later, even it would still be in high-level code. But it would be extremely hard to get the meaning from disassembled native code for a stranger, who does not have a clue what I was thinking and what kind of algorithms I was using, when I coded this. While there are tools which disassemble into a human readable form and some tools can even reconstruct some kind of high-level code, if they use information about how compilers create certain low level structures, the resulting code has no labeled variables and such and it is still hard to figure out, what it does and how it all fits together. Especially when it is distributed code, which is on many different machines which work together. This would require even more information about the hardware environment and it's structure - a lot of guess work to be done.

On the other side, to make a statement about what could cause lag and what might lead to a fix, can be made by educated guesses about the algorithms which are typical to be used to resolve certain issues. And from the programs behavior and performance educated guesses can be made and suggestions can result from these guesses. They might be near to the truth, even they are still guesses - but guesses, based on reason - or at least, they should be based on reason.

Enraged_Tiki_Torch · April 2016

I am 100% certain that no team of programmers compiles the code, then decompiles it to make changes.

If you don't understand code, then your not going to be able to write it. Copy & Pasting code off the net is not writing code. You simply can not write a line of code that is beyond your understanding of it. We learn to read before we learn to write, but I would sure be interested in knowing any human alive that has been able to write coherently before they could read. If you want to be a programmer than I suggest you learn to use the language. You'll be better off in the long run, trust me.

Also use comments and good architecture. You should be able to walk yourself through the logic step by step even years after writing the script. If you find it difficult than your architecture probably sucks (example: running 50 arguments in 1 method). Or you had to write something that looks complex, and you were too lazy to comment about what it's purpose was.

Programming is a line of communication between the author and the computer. So you don't need to telepathically connect with the original author of the code to understand it. You simply just need to understand how the computer would interpret the code. I'll say it again, computers are stupid. So stupid they make Forest Gump look like a genius. They need to be told step by step what you want them to do, and they can only return very basic answers to the arguments you give it. So with a complete understanding of a computer language, a human can easily decipher the level of logic a computer requires.

Merlight · April 2016

Enraged_Tiki_Torch wrote: »

I am 100% certain that no team of programmers compiles the code, then decompiles it to make changes.

Of course not, only those who don't have access to the source decompile binaries.

Enraged_Tiki_Torch wrote: »

If you don't understand code, then your not going to be able to write it. Copy & Pasting code off the net is not writing code. You simply can not write a line of code that is beyond your understanding of it. We learn to read before we learn to write, but I would sure be interested in knowing any human alive that has been able to write coherently before they could read. If you want to be a programmer than I suggest you learn to use the language. You'll be better off in the long run, trust me.

The fact that I'm now writing in English doesn't mean I'm able to immediately understand every English-written book in existence. There's more to understanding meaning than just reading words.

Enraged_Tiki_Torch wrote: »

Programming is a line of communication between the author and the computer. So you don't need to telepathically connect with the original author of the code to understand it. You simply just need to understand how the computer would interpret the code. I'll say it again, computers are stupid. So stupid they make Forest Gump look like a genius.

That doesn't mean they can't exhibit complex behaviour that's difficult to understand. Hive insects also look like pretty simple creatures, yet they do things you'd think they need to know quite a lot of physics to accomplish.

Enraged_Tiki_Torch wrote: »

They need to be told step by step what you want them to do, and they can only return very basic answers to the arguments you give it. So with a complete understanding of a computer language, a human can easily decipher the level of logic a computer requires.

Do you know cellular automata? They're basically grids of cells almost as stupid as a light switch. If I give you a "program" for these cells, consisting of a few plain English sentences, which you'll surely understand, will you be able to infer how the whole automaton will behave and what structures or patterns it will produce? I doubt it.