[Gllug] Computer literacy, was: ed vs emacs/vi, was: ed vs emacs, was: OpenMoko Neo Freerunner

[Christopher Hunter]

On Fri, 2009-05-15 at 13:42 +0100, Alain Williams wrote:

<snippage>

> The modern GUI is good at people who just sit down and expect to be able
> to use a computer without much training and experience of learning time.
> Very many people do not progress beyond what they learned on their first day.

Most don't progress what they learned in the first half-hour!

> I, occasionally, teach people - some of who claim to be computer professionals,
> I sometimes cringe when I see how inefficient their use is. Things like:
> enter something in a form, then move the mouse to click on the only button;
> why did then not press return ? Because: they never learned that and more
> importantly they do not have the mindset of trying things out to see if they
> can be faster.

There is a prevailing notion, mostly caused by poorly written software,
that "pressing the wrong button" will cause things to go wrong!
 
> Just like the huge number of people who don't know how to use email: top post,
> failure to trim, ... but I won't start.

Don't - you'll just get even more frustrated.

> But my point is serious: many of today's users don't understand much about
> the systems that they are using. We, the techies, don't really understand that
> they dont - and that they aren't interested.

To the vast majority, a computer is a commodity item, like their video
recorder, hi-fi system or even their toaster.  They're simply not
interested in what makes it work, and just blame everyone else when it
doesn't!  Windows went a long way to persuading "Joe Public" that
computers weren't the scary things he saw in movies - that's it's great
achievement and it's great failing! 

> What can we do to raise the level of computer literacy in the UK ?

Little or nothing.  Educational standards in this country are laughable
and the last thing this government really wants is an educated populace!

The only truly positive steps I've seen recently to promote "safe"
computing and to actually get the public to learn something were in the
Netherlands and in Finland.  In both instances, there are now a couple
of small ISPs that refuse connection from Windows users on the basis
that they might compromise their networks.  This might be an approach. 

Another option is to hit the users in the pocket - charge £30 per month
for a slow 'net connection to Windows users, and £15 per month for a
full speed connection to everybody else.  This would have a number of
benefits, not least of which reduces the amount of spam or DOS attacks
that can be sent from compromised Windows machines...


C.

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