On Saturday, 18 October 2014 at 20:50:42 UTC, ketmar via
Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
On Sat, 18 Oct 2014 19:42:50 +0000
Joakim via Digitalmars-d-learn
<digitalmars-d-learn@puremagic.com>
wrote:
> most people are stupid.
No disagreement there, but even the smart ones can only learn
so much.
that's why we should teach kids alot of things while their
minds are
"clear" and ready to absorb alot of knowledge. and, of course,
we must
teach them how to *use* that knowledge.
So much of what's taught today is so worthless that I'm skeptical
of anyone claiming kids should be taught "a lot," as if you know
what that is. And given our long history of barely being able to
teach any knowledge, with almost no success in getting people to
"use" it for something original, that seems like a dead end too.
Better to just let people take their own path and find what works
best for them.
Many people do not learn simple physics in school, and even if
they did, wouldn't necessarily be able to figure out how to
fix a specific mechanical system like a washing machine from
the general physical principles.
yes, figuring this out without manuals will be hard. but
learning
physics (proper learning of *anything* for that matter) will
give 'em
understanding of base principles (mechanics, electricity, etc)
and the
ability to extract information from books. it's enough for
simple fixes
that doesn't require to produce hi-tech parts.
I disagree, as there is a large gap of knowledge between the base
principles and the complex systems we build on top. How many
people would be able to diagnose and force reallocation of bad
sectors in their hard disk if hit with that problem, given the
basics of how hard disks work? I actually ran into this recently
and found little info about it, meaning not many people do it.
Yeah, we agree if you truly mean making most of what they
learn optional, not just "fun" but still required. Most of
the stuff we force on kids today, like multiplication tables,
how to divide numbers by hand, or memorizing historical dates,
is utterly useless.
ah, i hated that so-called "history lessons" where i was forced
to
remebmer that in year i don't care about somebody who i don't
care
about did something i equally don't care about. ;-)
yes, i'm sure that we should teach kids how to do things, not
just
making 'em remember that 4*8 is 32. tell 'em what
multiplication is and
then play games with them, games which involves using of
multiplication. this way kids will learn how to use
multiplication. no
need to remember any tables.
or let 'em build a simple robot and program it to do some funny
things.
it's exciting and they will learn many things about mechanics,
electricity, programming...
let 'em play a role of factory manager, for example, and they
will
develop a good understanding of how economics works.
and so on.
We agree that practical application is a better way to motivate
learning than absorbing theory from a book first, at least for
most students. But some kids are just not going to enjoy those
multiplication games or robot building and I'd say it's better
for them to choose something else to pursue, rather than forcing
them to pick up multiplication when it's a completely useless
skill, now that everybody carries around a calculator with them
in their phone these days.
>> Yet, civilization is made up of people like you, who would
>> all miss those mechanical systems far more than computers.
> it's a huge difference between "i miss my washing machine"
> and "all our
> communication and data processing systems are foobared".
Yet, I bet you they'll want that washing machine working far
more than the internet.
most people can't see a whole picture. it's bad. we must teach
kids to
understand how different things are interconnected too.
At this point, _I_ can't see your "whole picture." :) I made a
simple point, that building and fixing washing machines or
software is something most people don't want to do. Saying they
should learn those things anyway doesn't make sense.
Isn't that what people use Excel macros for?
aren't writing excel macros a programming?
My understanding is that you can write simple mathematical
formulas, which is as far as most probably go, even though it may
also allow iteration and other programming constructs. My point,
that I made below, is that people who need some of the power of
programming without the training can use cruder tools like these
most of the time.
There are specialized tools for the job, that are more limited
than full programming languages but easier to use for the
average person.
i never meant that all people should learn "full programming
languages". they have to know how to write algorithms, but not
necessary what "pointer" is or what is the difference between
manual
memory management and garbage collecting. yet if i'll show 'em
simple
recursive fibonacci function, they must be able to understand
it. hey,
it's lambda calculus, and lambda calculus is so simple, that
even
7-year kid can understand it! i checked that, kids are really
able to
understand it. ;-)
I wasn't going that far either, but I'd say even simple python is
useless for most people. As for lambda calculus, I don't know
what that is: I'm not a CS major. :) But even if some kids can
understand it, that doesn't mean most should learn simple
programming.
All of the above, anything you'd use a portable computer for
that doesn't require much typing and would benefit from a
larger screen than your smartphone.
instagram and social networks. ;-) two of the most useless
things on
the planet.
I'm not on any of those, but I have occasionally seen them on
other people's phones. People love checking each other out and
those apps give them what they want. Just because you and I
don't do it doesn't mean many people don't find it worthwhile.
It's like TV, most of it is junk but there's some good stuff on
there too.
And you're not limited to the junk on the idiot box, you can
download any video from the web and watch on the go.
and can't easily mark and categorize that until someone wrote
"web-service" for it. 'cause for doing it locally i need... ah,
to
write some scripts. and i have no keyboard (no, that on-screen
crap may
be good for tweeting, but it's generally unusable). i.e.
tablets *are*
idiot boxes, just with fancy pictures from over the world.
I believe that's what people use facebook and youtube "likes" and
tags for. You may consider anything without a full keyboard an
idiot box, but there's a lot of stuff on the web that's much
better than anything on TV, but doesn't require text input.
I don't read books anymore
even technical ones? ;-)
I think the only technical book I've read in the last decade is
Andrei's TDPL, which I bought in print and got about halfway
through. I've probably read bits and pieces of maybe five other
non-technical books here and there in the same timespan, which
were all given to me as gifts. I've never read an ebook, yet I
read extensively online. Books are an outdated form, now that we
have blogs.
but with their high-res displays up to 200-300 ppi these days,
reading text is very nice on tablets too.
i prefer to use some specialised device to reading text. it's
smaller,
it was made especially for reading texts and it can last alot
longer
without recharging.
I've never understood the appeal of e-ink devices, but my 10",
1.3 lb tablet is fatiguing to hold for extended periods of time,
constantly reloads webpages because it vacates their memory, and
only lasts for about 5-6 hours of uninterrupted use, so I don't
use it as much as I thought I would when I got it almost two
years ago. I'm hopeful that a smaller, newer tablet will fix
most of those issues, whenever I pick up my next one.
i mean that tablets can do all that things, but specialised
devices are
just better. and if i know that i'll have to spend some time
waithing
for something, i'll take my player and "ebook" with me. or
subnotebook
-- hey, it has real keyboard!
It sounds like you have different priorities than others. That's
great, you can carry around all those devices and they can carry
around their tablets. :)
Actually, the progression went the other way, people dropped
text UIs for graphical UIs. :)
that's 'cause they never used good UIs and we have no truly
component
environments. Oberon system was great even with it's TUI, and
it was
really exciting with it's gadgets UI. i'm still missing my
Oberon
system.
I don't know much about Oberon, but that gadgets UI sounds like
it's still a GUI.
by the way, if D will develop good runtime reflection (which is
required for precise and moving GCs anyway), we can resurrect
Oberon
gadgets with it.
fast compiler + runtime reflection + dynamic modules ==
excellent
component system.
I'm not saying _you_ need to leave the terminal, but for most
people GUI tools like Automator are enough.
terminal is not the best thing too. ;-) and i have nothing
against
automator-like tools when they allow flexible scripting when
user needs
it. but anyway such tools just trying to achieve what component
system
has out of the box. ;-)
there is no such thing as "application" in true component
system (nor
even a "file" for that matter). user can combine and glue
components in
any way he wants, building anything he wants.
e-mail reader? ok, create new document, drop treeview component
into
it, drop html viewer into it, drop "e-mail data source" into it,
connect 'em and voila! you have a simple working e-mail reader!
want some filtering? drop proxy data source into document,
connect it
to e-mail data source, reconnect tree view to proxy, write some
filters
and... voila, you have e-mail reader with filtering.
save this document and voila: you have "e-mail reading
application"!
the magic works both ways: take complex e-mail reading
application,
replace some components, add another components -- and you have
e-mail
reading application which is customized to your tasks.
open two documents -- and you'll have two automatically
synchronized
readers.
I actually agree with you that some sort of component system like
that is likely the future, even if it's only ultimately used to
make developers' lives easier and largely unconfigured by users
themselves, though I haven't looked much into the complex
historical reasons why it hasn't happened yet.
have you ever seen BlackBox Component Builder? it's written in
Component Pascal, but the basic principles are
language-independent.
i'm dreaming about BCB with D as base language...
No, never heard of it, sounds interesting.
I wouldn't be so quick to call it "stupid" as much as learning
takes effort and you only have so much time and effort to
learn so much stuff. Better to focus on the stuff that
interests you and leave the programming to others, at least
for most people.
simple scripting *is* programming! ;-) i'm not talking about
"everybody
must know how to write kernel module" here, as i mentioned
above. it's
more like writing in general: most people can write, but we
still have
professional writers. yet almost anyone can write a page of text
describing what he did last evening. this will not be a
bestseller ;-),
of couse, but there's no need to hire a professional writer for
such
task.
I'd say simple scripting is more like learning how to use basic
Photoshop, a niche skill that most people don't need and don't
want to learn, so they pay the few people who enjoy doing it
instead.
