Trent W. Buck <trentbuck@gmail.com> wrote:
Peter Ross wrote:
These days IT is everywhere, as a car is. But it does not make car mechanics a mandatory subject.. Most people use a car, and do not have any interest to figure out how it works.
One of the (many) reasons I don't have a car, is that it is not possible for me to learn how to unfuck a modern automobile in a polytechnic short course ;-)
I hear that these days you don't just need a toolbox, you need fancy-pants computers to talk to the engine. There seems to be more electronics in a new car than in my entire house...
There was a good presentation on this subject a few years ago at LCA, showing the results of connecting a Linux machine to the in-car systems. On the broader issue, though, the analogy between cars and computers breaks down fairly quickly. A car has only one primary function that is well understood, and every car uses a similar means of providing transport (some have electric engines and batteries rather than internal combustion engines but that's about as far as the differences extend). A computer is an entirely different kind of device: it is applicable to a quite general class of problems, it is highly flexible and adaptable in that software can be reconfigured or even replaced easily, and its interactions with the user can be much more complex than those of a car. Although a car mechanic can fix the car if it goes wrong, there really isn't that much difference between such a person and a regular user in regard to what each is able to accomplish with the vehicle in normal circumstances (i.e., they can both drive it from place to place). There is, by contrast, a far greater difference between how a relatively uninformed user and an educated user can interact with a computer to solve problems. For example, there are many tasks that I can perform much more efficiently than an uneducated user because I know how to use the shell and the basic UNIX tools, or how to use an editor such as Emacs or Vi, or how to write little shell scripts to automate repetitive tasks. Notice that this is not a matter of fixing the system when it breaks - hence not analogous to what the car mechanic can do. Rather, my problem solving ability is greater, and this is partly a function of my level of knowledge by comparison with the neophyte's. The relatively uninformed users can still operate a computer to solve problems, of course, but not to the same extent or with the same efficiency and generality as the skilled users. So there's a good case to be made for having more people toward the relatively skilled end of the scale, and this requires educational effort, which explains why the issues discussed in this thread truly are significant. A computer's problem-solving ability depends partially on the user's skill and knowledge. Usually, the more capable a software tool is of solving problems, the more knowledge is required to use it, or to use it well.