So, I feel like most of these posts are on the wrong track. Personally, I am a geek, I find joy in open-source software, making my peripherals, and building 32-bit processors from transistors, but it's unreasonable to expect the rest of the world to be as interested in technology as I am.
So, my question is: Why should I have to know anything to be considered computer-literate? I saw a lot of people posting comments along the lines of:
"They should be able to update their OS"
"They should have an idea of the file system's structure"
"They should know where different processing events occur"
In my opinion, these should be things that the average user can know NOTHING about and still be considered computer literate. The point of a computer (in a general sense, not for/. users) is not to make you know more about computers--it should be a tool that can somehow extend your abilities. I think that if you can make a computer do what you want it to do, you're computer literate. Forget that stuff about being able to build systems from scratch and install software--that's just slashdot elitism. Software should be self-maintaining--you shouldn't have to install patches every couple weeks, even if it's something as simple as clicking the 'OK' button. Software interfaces (from the user interface to the controls to the file structure) should be intuitive enough that anyone can understand it at a glance.
The number of posts on this topic claiming that people should have any knowledge whatsoever of the internals of a computer, software, or an OS are reflections on poor hardware and software design up to this point.
So, coming from the perspective of a chronic geek and a teacher, I think it's very important for kids to be exposed to some simple programming languages early on, both graphical ones like logo, starlogo, or scratch, and traditional ones like basic. I wonder if anyone has made a java shell for a basic interpreter that would allow users to make, save, and run programs. School computers often have huge restrictions on installing programs, but if there's something that's easily accessible through the web, and it was a site dedicated to something as benign as basic (no links to porn, etc...), it seems like it could be handy. I know this kind of thing exists for logo (http://homepage.mac.com/troy_stephens/TinyJavaLog o/), although more limited than a local logo program. What do slashdotters think about this?
I also agree with what a lot of people say about most new languages (html, flash, etc) being much cooler, easier to use, and with more interesting results than typing 10 goto 10. Is it even important for today's little geeklings to be learning text-based languages, or do we just think it is because that's what we did?
Slashdot Mirror
So, I feel like most of these posts are on the wrong track. Personally, I am a geek, I find joy in open-source software, making my peripherals, and building 32-bit processors from transistors, but it's unreasonable to expect the rest of the world to be as interested in technology as I am.
/. users) is not to make you know more about computers--it should be a tool that can somehow extend your abilities. I think that if you can make a computer do what you want it to do, you're computer literate. Forget that stuff about being able to build systems from scratch and install software--that's just slashdot elitism. Software should be self-maintaining--you shouldn't have to install patches every couple weeks, even if it's something as simple as clicking the 'OK' button. Software interfaces (from the user interface to the controls to the file structure) should be intuitive enough that anyone can understand it at a glance.
So, my question is: Why should I have to know anything to be considered computer-literate?
I saw a lot of people posting comments along the lines of:
"They should be able to update their OS"
"They should have an idea of the file system's structure"
"They should know where different processing events occur"
In my opinion, these should be things that the average user can know NOTHING about and still be considered computer literate. The point of a computer (in a general sense, not for
The number of posts on this topic claiming that people should have any knowledge whatsoever of the internals of a computer, software, or an OS are reflections on poor hardware and software design up to this point.
my $.022
So, coming from the perspective of a chronic geek and a teacher, I think it's very important for kids to be exposed to some simple programming languages early on, both graphical ones like logo, starlogo, or scratch, and traditional ones like basic. I wonder if anyone has made a java shell for a basic interpreter that would allow users to make, save, and run programs. School computers often have huge restrictions on installing programs, but if there's something that's easily accessible through the web, and it was a site dedicated to something as benign as basic (no links to porn, etc...), it seems like it could be handy. I know this kind of thing exists for logo (http://homepage.mac.com/troy_stephens/TinyJavaLog o/), although more limited than a local logo program. What do slashdotters think about this?
I also agree with what a lot of people say about most new languages (html, flash, etc) being much cooler, easier to use, and with more interesting results than typing 10 goto 10. Is it even important for today's little geeklings to be learning text-based languages, or do we just think it is because that's what we did?