Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!steinmetz!ge-dab!codas!abcom!rgsmeb
From: rgsmeb@abcom.ATT.COM (Michel Behna)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: What is CS? (Was re First languages)
Message-ID: <732@abcom.ATT.COM>
Date: 7 Apr 88 08:34:00 GMT
References: <8538@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU>
Organization: Who? What? Where? ...
Lines: 33

From article <8538@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU>, by hugo@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Peter Su):
> In article <607@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> jefu@pawl23.pawl.rpi.edu (Jeffrey Putnam) writes:
	[Stuff deleted]
> But, aside from that issue, I think  a straight prgramming class is next to
> worthless for many Humanties and fine art students.  What they need is more an
> illustration of how computers can be useful to them
	[Stuff deleted]
> People should be taught that computers can be very useful in all academic 
> areas, and that they should not be feared and hated.  Cramming Pascal down 
> a poor freshman's throat just guarantees one more freshman will never use 
> a computer again. 
> Pete

Bravo! I believe that you have hit upon a problem in both education and industry

To many understanding how a computer works is boring, tedious and irrelevant
but having the computer cut down the time it takes you to do a task is more
of an incentive to learn and use one maybe even understand one.

Everybody likes to play games on computers but not everyone wants to program
a game or even figure out how everything works. A computer is a means to an
end for the rest of non-computerdom and it should be as transparent as posssible
and as user-friendly( NOT that word again) as possible.

The day people stop thinking of computers as computers and more as a tool will
be the day that making people computer-literate is no longer necessary as by
then it will have been integrated into society.

-- 
Michel Behna					Qui a eu l'idee folle
"Unix is unique!"				D'inventer un jour l'ecole
rgsmeb@abcom.att.com				C'est se sacre Charlemagne
{ncsc5,codas}!abcom!rgsmeb