[Sussex] Worth a read

[nik at wired4life.org]

On Sun, Nov 09, 2003 at 11:48:53PM -0000, Mark Harrison wrote:
> Interesting read, but I found it a bit flawed.
And I bet you dont vote labour <grin>

> To say that "we should understand coding" is like saying "we should
> understand car mechanics". I know how to drive, and I am proud of my recent
Hmm I see what you mean. I mean I buy stuff in shops but its not
important to understand arithmetic. As for language literacy,
construction and spelling. Accept that it is and its important to
understand how they work and how they operate and this means I
understand Where Capital letters and full stops and quotes and commas
should go. I understand that when I multiply two negative numbers
together I get a Positive result. I understand that Water consists of
Hydrogen and Oxygen and that Heat is just radiation and that that
radiation could travel as a Particle or a wave. I dont need to know that
stuff but I do and because I do I have the edge on my peers. 



> car... however, I am willing to bet that 80% of SLUG members have no idea
im wiling to say youd lose that on account that of 3 Slug members whom I
know read this list 3 are very capable of mechanical tasks and
engineering. so im my statistical survey 100% of slug members i know,
know  how their car work. and if I include you its still 100%. So how
did you know it was a Otter Bush or a Bongo Clip ? Did a helpful
paperclip jump out of the dash board and say 

"I see your trying to chang the oil ? would you like to blah blah blah "

Or did you look for manuals, information and details about your vehicle.
Did this transform into how to utilise tools and materials to effect a
alteration of your vehicle.

Did it require the simple push of a button or did you understand the
code because you had the education and skills to implement your desired
output.

Something I do not feel you could have achieved without a high level of
basic skill sets which you have implemented. 


Also I think the car has had a economic impact , not a social impact.
Its affected how people work and do business but not their personal
rights or freedoms. so please lets not say that it had a social impact.
Now Reading and Numerical literacy have had a social impact. Code, and
software by its conitnued comparison to cars would have a economic
impact. 


> A call to arms to teach "IT literacy" is akin to a call, as genuinely
> occurred in the 50s, that everyone would need to start understanding car

In the 1600s, during the Renaissance Scholars and Clerics entering most
f Northern Eurpoe and Italy were enganged by Princes, Burghers and
Merchants to educate their children in numerical and literacy skills in
order to enable them to have a educational edge on their counterparts.

Great was the resistance and backlash by Clergy and Society for well
over 100 years to education. Comments such as .

"Surely I should not know my own mind , if I were to read the thoughts
of another from the pages of a Book. "

Its only been in the last 100 years that primary level education has
really expanded and enabled so many more children to recieve basic
education in Literal and Numerical analysis.


As for coding, id like to point out that BASIC is not a enterprise
language and really should not be used for developing enterprise
applications. But managers and directors maing those descision have done
so withou the basic computer literacy skills to enable them to
understand there correct tools and materials required.

Computer literacy needs rethinking, core concepts need to be understood
and discussed. The topic needs to be more than wordprocessors and
spreadsheets. There was a short period of time when I was at school that
teachers played with teaching LOGO. At that time no one would have
conceived the internet having become so dominant. 

Now with more people accessing the net and taking up computers for
shopping and email it becomes imperative that we teach our children
about our network infrastructure and the applications that run upon
them.


> It would, surely, be better to install in the community the view that coding
> was a form of engineering, and ensure that the IT profession started acting
> as a profession, rather being seen in the same picture as a bunch of
> untrained enthusiasts who have entered IT because they believe "they'll make
> loads of money, innit."

Where in reality the majority of  what I would call them  True IT
professionals are trained and educated through their peers and their own
reading and investigation skills. These people can be likened to the
amateur mathematicians and scientists of the 1800s and 1900s who went on
to become named and famous contributors to the modern worlds
development.

The continued reduction in rigourous and effective education has
resulted in a large drop off of interest in Science, maths and
computing.



Nik


-- 
nik at wired4life.org	http://www.wired4life.org/	Wired4Life, an Answer.

Q: Divide 14 sugar cubes into 3 cups of coffee so that each
cup has an odd number of sugar cubes.
A: 1,1,12
Riposte: 12 isn't odd!
A: It's an odd number of cubes to put in a cup of coffee (groan)