On Fri, November 22, 2013 1:25 pm, Pidgorny, Slav (GEUS) wrote:
But having a variety of practical topics is equally important. If you want to get into IT trade, learning things like C#, MS SQL Server and Active Directory (or Java, Oracle 12c and OID) has no detrimental effect to achieving that goal. I don't consider doing VAX Macro programming back in the university waste of time, certainly not feeling sorry about that.
The debate over the general and the specific is an interesting one, but certainly from an educational perspective it is the former that should be taught and the latter that is then applied. Too many people who learn computers effectively are taught how to drive the machine without learning the mechanics - and as any vehicle mechanic will tell you, they are a *better* driver because of that knowledge. Likewise with computing, a person who is a *programmer* will find that they can apply their skills to whichever programming language that they encounter. A person familiar with *operating systems* will be a suitable sysadmin whether in a Mac, Linux, or MS-Windows world. The reverse however does not however directly apply. An excellent driver may very well scratch their head when they lift the bonnet. A great Pascal programmer may be all at sea when they encounter C#. An expert in French will not know where to turn when they encounter Cantonese.. if only they had picked up some linguistics along the way! My first computing experience was with the Apple II. The first paragraph of the instruction manual gave the beautiful words: "Lift off the lid". It then went on to explain where the CPU was and, briefly, what it did. Where the memory was and what it did, and where the I/O slots were, and what they did. After putting in the card for the diskdrive in the I/O, it then suggested putting the lid back on and working with the machine as a user. But every single user who read that paragraph now knew something general which applied to all computing... Hope this makes some sense, -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GCertPM, MBA mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt