I myself use wireless for most of the computers in my house and I have many reasons to do so. I have my server hard-wired, but just about everything else is wireless.
First of all, my house was built in the 1950s so the walls are plaster and 1" thick. It's nearly impossible to get behind them without completely destroying the walls.
Second, on any reasonably large sized house, it is much more economical to go with wireless. We have a few laptops that are all wireless, and it kind of defeats their purpose to have to plug them in to get internet. Also, we have computers in just about every room of the house and we would have to buy hundreds of feet of cable in order to wire them. You can find decent wireless receivers for around $20 which is far less than we'd spend on the cabling to reach some of the far away rooms. And of course, we have the aforementioned problem of the thick walls we'd have to deal with.
Third, I don't know about you, but most of what I do at home is browse the internet doing nothing in particular, play games, and watch media off of my server. Security isn't my highest priority, I could care less if someone is able to intercept my transmission and see that I'm viewing the latest and stupidest video on Youtube. Not exactly something I'd need to keep intensely secure. If I had a top secret clearance and worked on important documents in my house, maybe that'd be a bit different. Anything secure I do at work during the day where my line is hard-wired.
Fourth, you mentioned lower speed. My wireless router is an 802.11G router, with theoretical speeds of 55 Mbps but in reality achieves around 15-20 Mbps. The uplink DSL to my house is a paltry 3Mbps. What point is there to do all this work to upgrade my internal network to 100 or 1000 Mbit when my total throughput to the outside world is capped at much lower? Unless I was doing a lot of transferring large files around inside my network which I seldom do, it seems like a lot of pointless work.
Last, there is of course a bit of the "lazy-factor," but it doesn't drive my decision, the other factors mentioned above do. But it is incredibly nice to know that I don't have to try and retrofit an entire house with new cables, redoing the walls where I try to snake the cable through, repainting them after I mess them up, buying cable and jacks and ends and spending hours and hours and hours trying to snake the cable throughout my entire house. You could call me another lazy American, but with the above reasons, I'd call running cables through my house creating a mess and a headache that aren't merited and have very little benefit.
Unfortunately, the FCC has a great rule that states that only one cable provider can be in your town and it is decided by your town board who provides your cable. It was created so that there wasn't a need to run 10 different cable lines to every house...but the side effect is that it creates a monopoly on anything run through the cable line that runs to your house. In theory, if you went to town board meetings, you could push the town to adopt a different cable carrier to service the area, but who goes to those lengths to save a few bucks a month on their internet?
That wasn't as bad when it came to simply cable television, but it is creating a mess now with the internet being offered through the cable companies. Since they own the lines, they are the only ones in your town that can provide cable internet. Your only option if you don't like the cable company in your municipality is to go with DSL which is slower in most areas.
So yeah, regrettably in the states, you're stuck with the FCC created monopoly on the cable company in your area.
I completely disagree with you. First of all, if you hosted an FTP Server and had tons of copyright crap, true, you will be held liable...but the Youtube/Google Video giant isn't an FTP Server...there are many non-copyrighted materials posted to both of these sites everyday. If you go to Google Video's Top 100, you'll see most of the videos are user-created. Granted most of them are girls lip-synching into a webcam or moronic pranks...hardly what I would call quality videos, but they are non-copyrighted nonetheless. Most of these people who post the videos, do it completely legitimately and are not in violation of any copyright laws.
You may or may not recall in the late 70s when Sony first came out with the Betamax. They were sued (Universal City Studios, Inc. et al. v. Sony Corporation of America Inc. et al.) because it was thought that people could run around copying movies illegally. Sony ended up winning the claim on the basis that the legitimate uses for their product superseded the illegitimate ones.
I believe we will see a similar ruling in this case. Youtube/GV is quite unlike Napster in that it has many legitimate uses as showcased by the aforementioned moronic videos. Also, although Napster was a scape goat in the free music downloading fad, you may or may not have heard of another case, MGM Studios vs. Grokster LTD. In this case, they upheld that the Grokster was not to be held liable for the music that was pirated using their software because LEGITIMATE uses existed for it...see a pattern here? Although the legitimate uses were few and far between, the theory was that the software designers shouldn't be held liable for stupid users infringing by utilizing their software just as Sony couldn't be held liable for infringement if its users copied video tapes.
I hereby propose a sister law to Godwin's Law which shall heretoforth be referred to as Quinn's Law stating that as a slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of a Microsoft bashing approaches one.
I bought a Dell right around when Windows ME was released and it came bundled with it. It crashed constantly. I was so fed up with it that I downgraded to Win98SE. Still not a great operating system in terms of stability, but my comp was much more stable after the downgrade.
A bit overkill for most people, don't you think? Should people not be considered capable of driving a car if they can't build one from the ground up? Ninety percent of the world wouldn't be able to drive, and a cab would cost so much we'd all still be riding horses. This is basically the same thing.
Agreed! I was beginning to think I was the only one on this thread that didn't think users need to have a computer science degree to be considered "literate"
literate - 1 a : EDUCATED, CULTURED b : able to read and write
2 a : versed in literature or creative writing : LITERARY b : LUCID, POLISHED c : having knowledge or competence
While I agree the skills you list are really good ones to have and that everyone should possess them, I think it is far beyond what should be required of literacy. As defined, literacy is simply the ability to read and write. This implies at the most basic level. It doesn't include understanding metaphors and hyperboles, it doesn't include many things that we seem to think the average person in this world should understand in order to be able to survive, it is the bare minimum they need to know to get by. If you were to come upon someone who was considered only literate in the English language, they would probably be able to read and write at the level of a fifth grader. Clearly not the most ideal for the world, but they would likely be able to read a shopping list or basic forms required for living. Likewise, computer literacy should simply include the basics. While I applaud your desire for everyone to know scripting, the fact of the matter is that very few computer users percentage wise know/understand how to do it and I think it is above and beyond what should be required to consider someone computer literate. My mother for example. She is able to send/receive email, type at a reasonable pace, browse the web and purchase things online, etc. and I would consider her computer literate--she is able to get by in her daily routine with the use of the computer and not call me every 2 seconds confused about everything. She could never in a million years start to get her head around writing a script in Perl. For God's sake it's kind of a bitch for me to get something like REGEXs right the first time and I'm a pretty seasoned programmer. I can't even imagine trying to explain those bad boys to my Mom or any "average" computer user for that matter.
I think computer literacy is much simpler and basic than you are making it out to be.
You may end up discovering a love for low-level programming techniques
True, that may happen, but if I was to take a course on Intro to Java, I would expect to learn Java, a high-level, object-oriented language. For the most part, low-level programming for drivers, etc. are rarely, if ever, done in Java. In an intro Java course, topics like memory addressing and pointers won't even be discussed. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for learning experiences and learning different things, I just don't feel it's right to force learning of one subject when you're teaching another. In an intro Java course, the students are likely to be learning simple things like initializing variables, for/while/dowhile loops, switch statements, simple functions: elementary things that using an IDE wouldn't hinder.
With most IDEs, installation is easy and something like Eclipse can be installed on any environment be it Windows, Linux, etc. In one of my courses a few years ago, we had to use C++ on a Linux box. For a Windows user, I had to spend a good amount of time getting acquainted first with Linux then with the whole makefile convention of C++ (Don't even get me started on how frustrating it was that spaces or new lines in the wrong places would ruin the entire thing) To someone who's been working with those constructs for awhile, they probably seem trivial. For someone less experienced with such things like myself, it was just frustrating and took 4 hours before I could get my program to compile without being angry. Over the course of the next semester while working on my project, I'm sure I wasted cumulatively around 10-20 extra hours with linux/c++ makefile issues. Had I used an environment I was more familiar with and was easier to compile in, I could have spent that time concentrating on what I was actually supposed to learn.
I may be getting a bit off topic here, but my contention is that if you make the environment easier for the user, more time can be spent on learning what you are actually trying to teach them--in this case, how to program in Java. I don't agree with any of the "IDEs will make their lives much easier and will make them poor programmers" arguments. It's not like an IDE is going to write the code for them, it'll just add functionality like color coding, formatting, line numbers to aid them, nothing to severely handicap them. I don't foresee any students finding life impossible if they all of a sudden didn't have line numbers and colors to help them keep things straight. As mentioned above, IDEs are generally easier to install and work with than vi, emacs, etc. Although experienced users find them simple to work with, someone who has grown up with Windows will have a steep learning curve and the time spent there could have been spent on learning the core of the course. Sure, there will be some some code completion for things in the Java API, but all that will do is save them 5 seconds from looking something up.
Nor can they tell you that using a certain API after another API creates a condition that another application on your production system can't tolerate.
True, APIs won't do that for you, but don't you think that's a bit out of scope for an intro Java class? I sure didn't learn that lesson in my intro java course...I was still back learning how to use for loops and learning simple algorithms.
We are not making it 'hard' on you, we are being kind by making sure that you know all the pitfalls before you go live.
I'm not necessarily saying that things shouldn't be hard on students, but I think you should maximize the time spent learning the language and minimize the time spent on learning semantics of something like vi, emacs, or other not-so-user-friendly environments.
I think this is slashdot gone way too fucking far.
Agreed. One thing that I've noticed as a Computer Science major and avid slashdot reader is that most CS guys tend to make things harder for themselves and others that they should be. I don't see any valid argument against using an IDE except to make life more difficult. My best guess is that programmers that grew up without the use of an IDE want newcomers to suffer as much as they did by using emacs, vi, etc. when an easier solution exists. It seems like a sophomoric "I suffered, now I'll make those that come after me suffer" situation.
Why not let students make use of IDE features such as code completion, color coding, et cetera? When they get into the real world, they will be able to use an IDE with these features if they please, why force them to practice on something they won't actually use when they graduate? That's just a waste of time for the students. Sure, some of these IDE features make learning the language easier for them, but it won't turn them into code idiots. They'll still need to understand the language in order to be able to program with it!
Slashdot Mirror
I myself use wireless for most of the computers in my house and I have many reasons to do so. I have my server hard-wired, but just about everything else is wireless.
First of all, my house was built in the 1950s so the walls are plaster and 1" thick. It's nearly impossible to get behind them without completely destroying the walls.
Second, on any reasonably large sized house, it is much more economical to go with wireless. We have a few laptops that are all wireless, and it kind of defeats their purpose to have to plug them in to get internet. Also, we have computers in just about every room of the house and we would have to buy hundreds of feet of cable in order to wire them. You can find decent wireless receivers for around $20 which is far less than we'd spend on the cabling to reach some of the far away rooms. And of course, we have the aforementioned problem of the thick walls we'd have to deal with.
Third, I don't know about you, but most of what I do at home is browse the internet doing nothing in particular, play games, and watch media off of my server. Security isn't my highest priority, I could care less if someone is able to intercept my transmission and see that I'm viewing the latest and stupidest video on Youtube. Not exactly something I'd need to keep intensely secure. If I had a top secret clearance and worked on important documents in my house, maybe that'd be a bit different. Anything secure I do at work during the day where my line is hard-wired.
Fourth, you mentioned lower speed. My wireless router is an 802.11G router, with theoretical speeds of 55 Mbps but in reality achieves around 15-20 Mbps. The uplink DSL to my house is a paltry 3Mbps. What point is there to do all this work to upgrade my internal network to 100 or 1000 Mbit when my total throughput to the outside world is capped at much lower? Unless I was doing a lot of transferring large files around inside my network which I seldom do, it seems like a lot of pointless work.
Last, there is of course a bit of the "lazy-factor," but it doesn't drive my decision, the other factors mentioned above do. But it is incredibly nice to know that I don't have to try and retrofit an entire house with new cables, redoing the walls where I try to snake the cable through, repainting them after I mess them up, buying cable and jacks and ends and spending hours and hours and hours trying to snake the cable throughout my entire house. You could call me another lazy American, but with the above reasons, I'd call running cables through my house creating a mess and a headache that aren't merited and have very little benefit.
Unfortunately, the FCC has a great rule that states that only one cable provider can be in your town and it is decided by your town board who provides your cable. It was created so that there wasn't a need to run 10 different cable lines to every house...but the side effect is that it creates a monopoly on anything run through the cable line that runs to your house. In theory, if you went to town board meetings, you could push the town to adopt a different cable carrier to service the area, but who goes to those lengths to save a few bucks a month on their internet?
That wasn't as bad when it came to simply cable television, but it is creating a mess now with the internet being offered through the cable companies. Since they own the lines, they are the only ones in your town that can provide cable internet. Your only option if you don't like the cable company in your municipality is to go with DSL which is slower in most areas.
So yeah, regrettably in the states, you're stuck with the FCC created monopoly on the cable company in your area.
I completely disagree with you. First of all, if you hosted an FTP Server and had tons of copyright crap, true, you will be held liable...but the Youtube/Google Video giant isn't an FTP Server...there are many non-copyrighted materials posted to both of these sites everyday. If you go to Google Video's Top 100, you'll see most of the videos are user-created. Granted most of them are girls lip-synching into a webcam or moronic pranks...hardly what I would call quality videos, but they are non-copyrighted nonetheless. Most of these people who post the videos, do it completely legitimately and are not in violation of any copyright laws.
You may or may not recall in the late 70s when Sony first came out with the Betamax. They were sued (Universal City Studios, Inc. et al. v. Sony Corporation of America Inc. et al.) because it was thought that people could run around copying movies illegally. Sony ended up winning the claim on the basis that the legitimate uses for their product superseded the illegitimate ones.
I believe we will see a similar ruling in this case. Youtube/GV is quite unlike Napster in that it has many legitimate uses as showcased by the aforementioned moronic videos. Also, although Napster was a scape goat in the free music downloading fad, you may or may not have heard of another case, MGM Studios vs. Grokster LTD. In this case, they upheld that the Grokster was not to be held liable for the music that was pirated using their software because LEGITIMATE uses existed for it...see a pattern here? Although the legitimate uses were few and far between, the theory was that the software designers shouldn't be held liable for stupid users infringing by utilizing their software just as Sony couldn't be held liable for infringement if its users copied video tapes.
I hereby propose a sister law to Godwin's Law which shall heretoforth be referred to as Quinn's Law stating that as a slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of a Microsoft bashing approaches one.
I bought a Dell right around when Windows ME was released and it came bundled with it. It crashed constantly. I was so fed up with it that I downgraded to Win98SE. Still not a great operating system in terms of stability, but my comp was much more stable after the downgrade.
Agreed! I was beginning to think I was the only one on this thread that didn't think users need to have a computer science degree to be considered "literate"
While I agree the skills you list are really good ones to have and that everyone should possess them, I think it is far beyond what should be required of literacy. As defined, literacy is simply the ability to read and write. This implies at the most basic level. It doesn't include understanding metaphors and hyperboles, it doesn't include many things that we seem to think the average person in this world should understand in order to be able to survive, it is the bare minimum they need to know to get by. If you were to come upon someone who was considered only literate in the English language, they would probably be able to read and write at the level of a fifth grader. Clearly not the most ideal for the world, but they would likely be able to read a shopping list or basic forms required for living. Likewise, computer literacy should simply include the basics. While I applaud your desire for everyone to know scripting, the fact of the matter is that very few computer users percentage wise know/understand how to do it and I think it is above and beyond what should be required to consider someone computer literate. My mother for example. She is able to send/receive email, type at a reasonable pace, browse the web and purchase things online, etc. and I would consider her computer literate--she is able to get by in her daily routine with the use of the computer and not call me every 2 seconds confused about everything. She could never in a million years start to get her head around writing a script in Perl. For God's sake it's kind of a bitch for me to get something like REGEXs right the first time and I'm a pretty seasoned programmer. I can't even imagine trying to explain those bad boys to my Mom or any "average" computer user for that matter.
I think computer literacy is much simpler and basic than you are making it out to be.
True, that may happen, but if I was to take a course on Intro to Java, I would expect to learn Java, a high-level, object-oriented language. For the most part, low-level programming for drivers, etc. are rarely, if ever, done in Java. In an intro Java course, topics like memory addressing and pointers won't even be discussed. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for learning experiences and learning different things, I just don't feel it's right to force learning of one subject when you're teaching another. In an intro Java course, the students are likely to be learning simple things like initializing variables, for/while/dowhile loops, switch statements, simple functions: elementary things that using an IDE wouldn't hinder.
With most IDEs, installation is easy and something like Eclipse can be installed on any environment be it Windows, Linux, etc. In one of my courses a few years ago, we had to use C++ on a Linux box. For a Windows user, I had to spend a good amount of time getting acquainted first with Linux then with the whole makefile convention of C++ (Don't even get me started on how frustrating it was that spaces or new lines in the wrong places would ruin the entire thing) To someone who's been working with those constructs for awhile, they probably seem trivial. For someone less experienced with such things like myself, it was just frustrating and took 4 hours before I could get my program to compile without being angry. Over the course of the next semester while working on my project, I'm sure I wasted cumulatively around 10-20 extra hours with linux/c++ makefile issues. Had I used an environment I was more familiar with and was easier to compile in, I could have spent that time concentrating on what I was actually supposed to learn.
I may be getting a bit off topic here, but my contention is that if you make the environment easier for the user, more time can be spent on learning what you are actually trying to teach them--in this case, how to program in Java. I don't agree with any of the "IDEs will make their lives much easier and will make them poor programmers" arguments. It's not like an IDE is going to write the code for them, it'll just add functionality like color coding, formatting, line numbers to aid them, nothing to severely handicap them. I don't foresee any students finding life impossible if they all of a sudden didn't have line numbers and colors to help them keep things straight. As mentioned above, IDEs are generally easier to install and work with than vi, emacs, etc. Although experienced users find them simple to work with, someone who has grown up with Windows will have a steep learning curve and the time spent there could have been spent on learning the core of the course. Sure, there will be some some code completion for things in the Java API, but all that will do is save them 5 seconds from looking something up.
True, APIs won't do that for you, but don't you think that's a bit out of scope for an intro Java class? I sure didn't learn that lesson in my intro java course...I was still back learning how to use for loops and learning simple algorithms.
I'm not necessarily saying that things shouldn't be hard on students, but I think you should maximize the time spent learning the language and minimize the time spent on learning semantics of something like vi, emacs, or other not-so-user-friendly environments.
Why not let students make use of IDE features such as code completion, color coding, et cetera? When they get into the real world, they will be able to use an IDE with these features if they please, why force them to practice on something they won't actually use when they graduate? That's just a waste of time for the students. Sure, some of these IDE features make learning the language easier for them, but it won't turn them into code idiots. They'll still need to understand the language in order to be able to program with it!