-=> Quoting Ron Mcdermott to Bob Anderson <=-
 RM> I was suggesting here that working with the CLI (command line
 RM> interface) is probably pointless since so much is now done
 RM> using a GUI... The GUI also helps prevent "accidental" damage
 RM> being done which is all too easy using CLI...
Regrettably, no one seems to understand anything about even the
simplest things like file and directory structure anymore. I saw
the same phenomenon happen with the Mac in '84; a file is dragged
and dropped into the wrong "folder" (because there were a bunch
overlapping one another on the desktop) and suddenly that file
has completely "vanished". A friend of mine teaches in a high
school where all the main office secretaries use Macs for word
processing. He'd get called to the office about once a week because
a secretary had "lost" a file. Since none of them knew what a file
is, or a directory, or even what a hard drive is, if a file was
somehow misplaced, it was gonzo.
Last week I was over at someone's place helping him install my
gradebook program under Win 95. He thought a file is a folder,
and a directory and a folder are two different things. He thought
there is only one directory, Windows 95, on his C: drive, and every-
thing he installed was going into that -- somewhere. He'd downloaded
a few files by FTP or with his web browser, but he didn't know where
they'd gone to. And if he ever finds them he won't know what to do with
them since they are archives and he doesn't have the least clue what
to do with an archive. And so it goes. The problem is Windows isn't
nearly so good as System 7.x at hiding the underpinnings, and when
the slightest thing goes wrong, it's like trying to pick up dimes
wearing oven mitts; Windows just gets in the way when serious work
needs to be done. A CLI does exactly what you tell it to do -- which
is why it can be so dangerous :) To anybody who just got his first
computer: put away the damn mouse and the stupid desktop with all
the clicky pictures, get a book on DOS ("DOS For Dummies" will do
just fine), and learn how your machine actually works at the DOS
command line level. Then and only then should you use a GUI like
Windows, all the while assimilating that with your good understanding
of the underlying operating system, so the GUI does what it was
originally intended to do: make ordinary computer tasks simpler to
perform, NOT reduce intelligent thought and planning to brain stem
reflexes revolving around the mouse-click.
 BA>Wonderful idea. This brings up another point though,programing.
 BA>The utility of batching in dos is self evident, but what about other
 BA>kinds of programing.....say in qbasic, or, logo?
What MS should do is package a stripped down version of Visual Basic
with Win 95, just as they did with QBASIC and DOS. There's no reason
kids shouldn't start with VB right now, at the appropriate level of
complexity of course.
 RM> you're going to lose them.... Let them "play" with a GUI..
 RM> Any formatting, etc, let them do from the GUI.  Forget
 RM> programming; if one out of 200 goes anywhere with programming
 RM> it'll be a miracle...
This is "old think" Ron. The only workers there'll be in twenty
years is "information workers". There may still be relatively few pure
programming jobs around (i.e. systems level, from the ground up, "close
to the iron"), but there will be all sorts of intermediate programming
positions, even if it's just assembling re-usable objects to create
a custom application, or using some program to create web pages (I'm
using current terminology here solely for illustration; who knows what
awaits us in 20 years?). The fact is any kid who learns to program
_right_now_ will find himself virtually guaranteed a job if he turns
out to be a half-decent programmer. As in any other other field, the
cream rises to the top. I know a bunch of guys right now getting into
college-level programs, and the information technology programs are
bursting at the seams. These are guys who until now had "McJobs", in
their late twenties, with no time left to lose. And they are getting
good jobs when they graduate.
 RM> Wordprocessing
 RM> is big; they're going to need it, and it's easy enough to get
 RM> them to write a report on what they did on a given day...
What they're going to do Ron, is speak into a small microphone,
whereupon the converted speech-to-text will be passed through
spelling and grammar-checking filters. "Keyboarding" (geez I hate
that word) will virtually disappear within five years, except as
a backup manual method for phossilized physics teachers ;-)
 RM> * MR/2 2.26 * WIN95: Start me up,...you can make a grown man cryyyyy!
Sure -- make him use OS/2 instead!
coffeerp@adan.kingston.net  Û] COFFEE MUG SOFTWARE Û]
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