On Sat, 22 Dec 2001 at 11:40, Rafael 'Dido' Sevilla wrote:
> > We're Computer Science majors, don't forget. Wizards are BAD for us.
> Yeah, you're right cuz.

At last, validation from my dearest cousin. Hehehe. ;>

> Look for those articles on the dumbing down of programming on Salon.com
> that I believe Ian mentioned some time ago.

I read those (and some linked articles) when Ian posted them. Definitely a
good read, with very valid points, of course.

> It argues what's so wrong with the Microsoft approach of making things
> TOO easy; you wind up forgetting the fundamentals.

And in a lot of cases, it's not winding up forgetting the fundamentals,
it's allowing you to get so far without knowing any. Then when you hit the
scalability or functionality barriers of Microsoft solutions and try the
freely available alternatives (ie: OSS/FSF) you don't know a thing because
a lot of these assume the fundamentals.

Eric Pareja and I, for example, noticed a huge learning curve for a lot of
upperclass CS majors when they had to shift from doing RAD with
Microsoft's wizardry to using PostgreSQL/MySQL + PHP. They freaked out
when they saw they had to code. With the point and click training, one
learns to think in points and clicks. ;>

 --> Jijo

--
Federico Sevilla III  :: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Network Administrator :: The Leather Collection, Inc.
GnuPG Key: http://jijo.leathercollection.ph/jijo.gpg

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