[OT] HyperCard and the Interactive Web

[Richmond]

On 02/26/2012 10:53 PM, Geoff Canyon wrote:
> It's interesting that you bring up the slaughterhouse analogy -- I've used
> it on many occasions to make the opposite point: I know that cows are
> butchered to make steaks. I've seen videos of it, in fact. I shouldn't have
> to learn how to do it to order at McDonalds.

No, you shouldn't; but it is valuable knowledge insofar as you then are 
aware that by
eating meat you do it at a price; the suffering of vast numbers of 
animals, that can, quite easily be avoided.

>
> There's a world of difference between "Kids today" and "computer
> programmer." Forcing the 99.9% of kids who *won't* become computer
> programmers to use a command line because of the .1% who will is like
> forcing every kid to butcher a hog before they are allowed to eat bacon.

"Kids today" is the phrase used in Britain to justify NOT teaching 
literature written before 1945, history before 1914,
and the general dumbing down of most things.

Apart from any other considerations, while slide-rules  and command 
lines may not be all that useful nowadays

[mind you, you'd be hard put to quite a few things on a computer without 
some sort of nodding acquaintance with a terminal],

we should think about what the words "cultured" and "educated" mean. If 
all one wants to teach one's kids are things that
may have some pragmatic use, then we should scrap 90% of every school 
curriculum, so we can end up with an sort of
1984/Brave New World hybrid and say prayers to Henry "History is Bunk" 
Ford .

>
> On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 12:14 PM, Richmond<richmondmathewson at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>    Kids today don't need to know
>>> what a command line is because the vast majority of them will never see
>>> one
>>> in their lives.
>>>
>> Really? I wonder about that. Surely every potential computer programmer
>> should
>> have some sort of understanding of command lines. This is rather like
>> saying that
>> that children brought up in cities should have no understanding that
>> animals are slaughtered
>> so that they can have meat on their plates, because they will never see a
>> slaughter-house.
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