Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!hsdndev!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: Ware Ware Wizardjin Message-ID: <15751@smoke.brl.mil> Date: 8 Apr 91 01:37:58 GMT References: <25649@hydra.gatech.EDU> <12535@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD. Lines: 21 In article <12535@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> kemnitz@gaia.berkeley.edu (Greg Kemnitz) writes: >I suppose some of us miss the days of yore when computers were the altars >through which the common people worshipped us, rather than being things that >the "common people" use to get their work done. We may look down our noses >at those who think a device driver has something to do with auto racing, and >for whom the options to IOCTL are not the stuff of mortal feuds, but they are >the people who pay our salaries and justify our existence. I hear this sort of thing fairly often, and don't know who started it. I've been programming computers for around 25 years, and have never been "worshipped", nor would I have wanted that. Also, my existence is most emphatically not justified by being a slave to others. Perhaps what many of the old-timers miss most is the expectation that people who use computers would know what they are doing. The idea that an arbitrary naive human should be able to properly use a given tool without training or understanding is even more wrong for computing than it is for other tools (e.g. automobiles, airplanes, guns, power saws). I hate to think how much time I've lost trying to help computer users who could have been able to help themselves if they had spent even a few hours of study before proceeding to mess around with the computer.