Any newbie Linux forums 4049

On 10 Jul 2005 17:44:02 -0500, jeff staggered into the Black Sun and said:

I think Peter meant "most newbies don't think in the manner which works best for solving most computer problems". This is true to some extent. Your average person spends much more time dealing with people than dealing with computers. What works for dealing with people problems (appeal to authority, ego-stroking, intimidation, asking several times in different ways) tends to fail with circuits and bits. A computer program, given the same input, tends to produce the same output.01 N people given the same input tend to produce N+1 different outputs.

Also, decent entry-level learning environments seem to have disappeared. When my parents bought an Apple-c back in 1984, it came with several "tutorial disks" that explained all kinds of things about operating a-c in the form of graphical presentations and little games. Similar demos ran on the 128K Macs in the local computer store--"this is a mouse, this is a cursor, this is a window, this is what 'double-clicking' is...". Today, everybody buttumes the users already know those things and some others besides. Those who don't get left behind--basically, they memorize some steps, and if their MS ExHell icon moves 2" to the right, they panic.2

This would work well if people could hack it. Many people are afraid of experimenting with the complicated machine they're using. Part of this is because it seems to be human nature to fear the unknown. Part of it is that it can be easy to make a computer unusable if the user's running as root. I dunno--user education; sometimes that's all you can do....

But... but... not doing that means you have to *think*! The problem is not unique to Peter (who isn't quite as dogmatic as you say)--look at every political party in existence.

0 Monte Carlo simulations and games excepted. 1 Flaky hardware throws this off too. 2 I've never seen anyone *quite* that bad, but I've seen users who didn't know how to create bookmarks in a web browser, and users who didn't know how to rename or move files using Windows Explorer. I tried to educate 'em just a little bit, without harsh language because I was on the clock at the time.

-- Matt GThere is no Darkness in Eternity-But only Light too dim for us to see Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong ----------------------------- This space sort of for rent.