Hi Makarius, | Yes, that is an important point. When I get on a train, I buy a train | ticket, not the technical manuals to take it apart and rebuild it myself | again. Or when I want to run an operating system I download Ubuntu and | spend maybe 30min with a few trivial clicks to get it working by itself. | No need to understand X11 server configuration anymore, what that was | commonplace 10 years ago.
This seems to be a common path with technology generally, where initially there is a close correlation between the users of a machine and experts in its internal workings, but over time the two things diverge. It's certainly clear that programming and computer use were initially closely linked but have now largely decoupled. One sees a similar story with cars: in the early days most drivers had some understanding of how they worked and how problems could be fixed (if only from necessity because they were so unreliable), whereas now not many drivers perform even basic maintenance themselves. I vaguely remember an interview with Douglas Adams where he claimed that the same was originally true of many domestic appliances, e.g. that there were magazines aimed at refrigerator hobbyists. But I might have made that up. Of course, the ability to understand a system down to the bottom does have real value for those whose intended use is a bit more radical and outside the normal or expected usage model. Besides, I think many people are interested in formalization precisely because they want to have a clearly understood foundation, a kind of "search for certainty". So those who are naturally drawn to formalization in the first place may also appreciate being able to understand completely the logical and software engineering foundations of a system. John. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ hol-info mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hol-info
