On Tue, 2003-10-21 at 17:01, Thomas Thurman wrote: > On Tue, Oct 21, 2003 at 04:13:49PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote: > > Why expose children to computers at such a young age? Shouldn't > > they be running and jumping, playing with toys, coloring, cutting, > > riding bike/scooter, etc, instead? > > (Gosh, I never thought of that. Guess we should close down Debian Jr.)
Gross over-reaction. When my kids are older, they still will need simple Linux-based tools. A threadlet of "Replacement for Abiword" discussed this. > > Yes, I have 2 young children: boy aged 5.67, girl aged 4.25, and > > yes, I am a database administrator (after being a programmer for > > many years), and I've been very successful at it, while not having > > been exposed to computers until 12th grade. (Although I could have > > used WordStar to type book reports & term papers.) > > That doesn't mean anything one way or the other: you can't tell > what your life would have been like had you started using computers > earlier. Nor can I tell what mine would have been like had I not > been exposed to computers as a child. Until one or the other of us > can find a proper study, it's not really worth quoting such things > as evidence. If you are curious and drawn to technology, you would have arrived sooner or later. Maybe not as a programmer; maybe as an engineer, or an artist. So what? After all, having more professional engineers is a good thing. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Ron Johnson, Jr. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jefferson, LA USA "(Women are) like compilers. They take simple statements and make them into big productions." Pitr Dubovitch
