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There's an old deep division between people who think everyone ought to learn the depths of a computer and people who think that's unreasonable and maybe not ev
by api 11y ago
There's an old deep division between people who think everyone ought to learn the depths of a computer and people who think that's unreasonable and maybe not even good.
I used to be in the former camp and have moves to the latter. Consider cars. There are lots of "car people" who love to tinker with them, but most people just want to get where they are going.
It would be unreasonable to expect everyone to be a car expert, and it would also mean everyone would have to spend the time required to learn it. That would cut into time spent doing other things, which would be narrowing and wasteful. Instead of composing music or starting businesses or writing novels, people would be futzing with cars.
- mwcampbell 11y agoI agree. It seems to me that as a class of product matures, it becomes less necessary for people to understand the intricacies of its implementation. And then there will inevitably be those that lament that loss of understanding and widespread tinkering.
- cbd1984 11y agoWhich is why cars, which are now 100-year-old technology, come with their hoods welded shut and you need special manufacturer-authorized tools to even change the oil.
- userbinator 11y agoThere's a difference between "not needing to" and "explicitly discouraged from", and while I think computers should be designed for the former, the latter is what I find more troubling.
- api 11y agoI dunno. If my car were sealed that would be okay with me as long as this development were coincident with less maintenance or lower cost. There's not likely to be many user serviceable parts of an electric car. If you are a computer person there is more and more diversity of cheap hackable stuff out there today than ever before. The enthusiast market and the general market are not the same and are likely to keep diverging. Same has happened with cars.