Msg: 2309 *Conference*

04-08-92 21:43:33

From: LEX JENKINS

To : RICK HANSON

Subj: EDUCATION?

Rick,
 
I've been pretty busy the last few days, but I want to pick up the threads of
your last message, re: the educability of folks who choose to, or are forced
to, learn the arcane cabala of computer alchemy; and the future of Club 100.
 
I can't, and won't, even bring up the broad subjects of "education" or the
learning skills; it's too depressing.  But anyone who's figured out how to call
up a bbs with a computer has shown capability.  Anyone who asks for help with a
computer shows the promise of capability.  Those are cause for optimism.
 
The trick, I suppose, is to pique the curiosity - possibly a long dormant trait
in many people - of those who ask for help with problems that are "clearly
addressed on page XXX of the manual."  Convert those folks from passive sponges
to active seekers of information.  The other trick, as you mentioned, is to be
sure that the information on page XXX of the manual is, in fact, "clearly"
addressed.
 
Along those lines (the manual part, not the people part - hang around THAT pool
too long, I might get my feet wet), have you noticed that the (approximately)
geometric rise in the technological complexity of the 20th Century has been
accompanied by an (approximately - notice how deftly I avoid commitment)
exponential decline in the quality of the technical publications designed to
make the technology comprehensible?
 
Compare, for example, a circa 1950 operators manual for, say, a machinist's
lathe with a circa 1990 manual for computer software, hardware, firmware,
bubbleware, vaporware, etc.  Chances are a novice at either pursuit will crank
out a titanium needle bearing, milled to fine tolerance, sooner than he will a
single satisfactory document from within the bowels of his nifty PhazerSpiff
printer.
 
Heuristic learning - a $50 term for what babies do when they put stuff in their
mouths - depends as much on the information transmitter and on the receiver.
"Garbage in, garbage out..."  A popular phrase amongst programmers and database
designers, but the philosophy often escapes those who write the documentation.
 
And what wouldn't most of us give for the return of those lush, expertly
lighted, airbrushed black & white photos in tech manuals of yore, from whose
pages metal parts gleamed with a satiny glow that tempted you to hold a magnet
to the page to find out whether they were real?  Whoever first uttered, "A
picture is worth a thousand words," wasn't talking about dot matrix line
drawings.
 
As for the future of Club 100, well... here's to the future!  As long as you
have members who recognize that what goes into, and comes out of, any computer
is more important than the hardware itself, the Club will have a future.
 
<Lex>