An observation from getting into first electrical then aerodynamic engineering - both rely to some extent on ability to vividly hallucinate
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Or actually trying to picture streamlines, flows, behind/under aircraft.
Is this true of all engineering to some extent? Any examples where visualization is not used heavily in design?
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(Or where tools have become good enough to democratize this?)
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I think intuition is a key factor, maybe more key than visualization, and that’s a little harder to democratize
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I've been trying to figure out how I think about source code. I don't think it's visual, but I also don't think it's a linear text stream
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Same for the data, or the computer?
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Sorry, I don't think I understand the question
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Whether or not you visualize the function of the code - is there any distinction, do you imagine dataflows perhaps?
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It's not the same but I think I spent a bunch of time "seeing" bitshift operations and registries when looking at asm
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Not sure if the function of the computer matters as much or if it's an additional place one might spend time imagining operations visually
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Good point: bitwise operations do have a visual component, as do sorting, merging, partitioning, stack operations, and tree traversal
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I wonder how this works for engineers with aphantasia! Would be interesting to hear how accomplished folk with it mentally model concepts
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Yeah I'm probably constrained in broadly understanding this, my take is vv visual
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I went to school with folks more talented who could "visualize what the electrons did," so maybe there's a benefit to hyperphantasia too!
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If you're counting software engineering, then I think I agree that visualization is useful. Feels very limiting that I can't visualize well.
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I had been thinking abt it. You must have some concept for what's going on in the machine. How does that work for you?
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Hmm... trying to list some things I previously struggled with where visualization might have helped.
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Way back when I first learned how to code, variable scope (e.g. function vs global) was very confusing. So was pointer arithmetic.
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My teachers and textbooks would offer diagrams but they often didn't make sense to me. Maybe I eventually drew my own? Can't remember.
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