Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:5127 comp.os.linux.misc:34204 comp.os.os2.advocacy:76520 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!agate!nntp-ucb.barrnet.net!well!henryh From: henryh@well.sf.ca.us (Henry Hwong) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.os2.advocacy Subject: Re: Linux thoroughly insulted by Infoworld! Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.os2.advocacy Date: 28 Jan 1995 19:35:24 GMT Organization: The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA Lines: 109 Message-ID: <3ge69s$gt8@nkosi.well.com> References: <950116203411@lambada> <3g34fr$jri@nkosi.well.com> <3g3g14$1vd@galaxy.ucr.edu> <3g3pbt$13a@nkosi.well.com> <D30Kyy.695@bonkers.taronga.com> <3g9pfp$9al@nkosi.well.com> <D32pCH.328@park.uvsc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: well.sf.ca.us X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1] Terry Lambert (terry@cs.weber.edu) wrote: : henryh@well.sf.ca.us (Henry Hwong) wrote: : ] Not all people can just curl up with a manual and understand it. If : ] anything, classes give people a head start and give access to a person : ] who happens to know about it. : I have to take exception here. A lot of what I do as a programmer : is demonstrate a learned skill; but I am not *only* a skilled worker. : According to the department of Labor, who rates me as an exempt : employee, what I (and you, if you are a software engineer) do is : more than 50% creative. : And I have to argue that not everyone can learn every skill, and not : everyone can *be* creative. : The ability to curl up with a manual an understand it is an intrinsic : part of what makes me good at what I do, and, I think, an intrinsic : part of what makes other people in this field good at what they do. : The universe is not egalitarian. Welcome to the universe. Agreed. Most of my work is in the designing of large data processing systems with lots of interfacing between UNIX systems and mainframes. The best systems I've seen and worked on are the ones that have a lot of creative thinking behind them. : Sorry to go off like this, but I find this offensive in the same : way I that I find MIS managers turning to things like Visual BASIC : and AppWare offensive, the same way I find EE's with no programming : experience writing BIOS code for video and SCSI cards offensive. If I could only tell you how my viewpoint has evolved since joining a business systems consulting firm fresh out of graduate school in computer engineering. It's too long, and not very interesting, so I won't make the millions of lurkers suffer through it. :-) It would be great if all our systems could be written in C or C++, use the most stable operating systems and packages out there, etc. However, many business systems out there are now written in Powerbuilder and Visual Basic. Why? For one thing, those languages are higher level than C or C++ -- it's a lot easier to encapsulate business logic in those high level languages. It's also a lot easier to maintain. Less number of statements required. More third-party packages that interface with them. And so on. Business systems need to be out the door ASAP -- before the business changes make the system obsolete. They want just enough to do useful work, and no more. We can't blame the MIS managers, because IS departments are considered overhead or cost centers in 99% of the organizations they support. They don't get enough money in their annual budgets to make the best systems they can. They only get enough to get the job done. Blame upper management, but don't throw too many arrows at the IS group. That's why VB and PB are so widely embraced. Not because they make the best systems, but because they can help speed things up. I don't think businesses would embrace networked computers using UNIX and PCs if all they had were C, Windows SDK, or Xlib. Systems development would take too long. It's a different mentality. Tough for someone like me who started messing with computers on a Commodore PET and diddled with 6502 assembly on an Apple II. Okay, now I feel like this discussion belongs on alt.folklore.computers. :-) : ] Now, I guess my experience in classes has been a little different. The : ] classes we send our client people are taught by people who know what they : ] are talking about. If you haven't been to those, I'm sorry to hear that. : ] However, I don't think it's fair to condemn all training for your experience. : I agree with this statement; however, there is a lot of truth to : the adage that a computer consultant/trainer is anyone who is out : of work when you find you need a consultant/trainer. That's very true. : ] And who says you need Stevens or Allman to teach classes? Do you need : ] Shakesphere to teach you about English literature? Do you need Oppenheimer : ] to teach nuclear physics? : Do you need Plato, Socrates, or Aristotle to teach philsophy? : Actually, those three were renouned teachers, and what they taught : has survived to today largely because of their ability to teach. : You don't *need* these people to teach you directly, of course, but : if you can get them, the experience is *vastly* superior to getting : the information second-hand. People qualified in these fields will : be using the teachings of these people in their classes if they are : any good themselves. Just as in the game "gossip", an idea that : passes through many hands after leaving its source can be twisted : in the teaching. As long as Stevens, Allman, et al. are available, : they should be utilized in favor of anyone else who happens to be : expounding their ideas. I'm not disputing that the best teachers are the ones who are experts, too. However, I'm not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater either and just blow off training because there are a lot of bad teachers. I think it's worth the effort to seek them out. The experts aren't always the best teachers either. I remember some of my classes in college were taught by the most brilliant people around who couldn't communicate to another human being at all. Needless to say, those class lectures were useless. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has experienced this.... anyone? anyone? Bueller? I guess we could start a thread on research vs. teaching on university campuses, but maybe that's too big of a tangent. :-) -Henry