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Yeah, I think a lot of people here assume you can "just pick up" those skills, because they themselves did that. But most of HN's userbase are technically incli

Yeah, I think a lot of people here assume you can "just pick up" those skills, because they themselves did that. But most of HN's userbase are technically inclined to begin with -- they're interested in tech stuff and pick it up relatively easily. Most people aren't like that, they're not going to pick up tech literacy beyond the level of using a browser/email any more easily than they'd "just pick up" trigonometry on their own.

watwut 6y ago
Very frankly, most people who think they "just picked up" things up did not picked things those things up from nothing. They were in environment that provided enough information and idea about there are things to be picked up from. That is guidance. And looking at kids now, there is pretty often one kid who is shown basics by parent or video who then show part of those basics to other kids - when it comes to things they are interested in like minecraft. Then they bootstrap, but this is not like the first kid would divine minecraft servers exists. There was that information somewhere. Same applies to useful skills, except they are less likely to find fun stuff about writing documents or filesystem.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  [Caution, pointless reminiscence.] >Very frankly, most people who think they "just picked up" things up did not picked things those things up from nothing. // Yeah, not from nothing, but sometimes from not a lot. I'm middle aged, when I learnt some programming I didn't [knowingly] know anyone who could program. My parents knew how to put the cassette in and load a program; the teachers at school didn't even know how to switch the thing on (or pretended not to?). The computer came with a manual and from that you could work out how to list programs and try changing them, some example listings were given to type in. High-school age my mum bought home a computer (orange screen and big turbo button; Win3 I think) as she was volunteer librarian at the school; eventually I found Qbasic on it and it had 3/4 example programs that I gleaned enough from to make a fractal drawing. I spent quite a lot of time at a command line thinking of things to try writing instead of "win" which loaded up MSWindows - most Basic I knew didn't do anything in DOS to my recollection! All text interfaces should always respond to "help"!! Wasn't until Uni that I found out there was such a thing as computer science. I mean I'd seen War Games by then and dreamt of having an audio-coupler for several years. I think I thought everyone just used computers if they could; like the guys who programmed spacecraft were just the people who made it. A little guidance at those early stages would have gone a long way I feel; but I'm sure some managed to grok gorilla.bas, or their equivalent, and bootstrap themselves in to full-on programming. Anyway, get off my lawn ...
  - jkaptur 6y ago
    > My parents knew how to put the cassette in and load a program > The computer came with a manual > some example listings were given > my mum bought home a computer > she was volunteer librarian at the school > I spent quite a lot of time at a command line thinking I'm not sure if this is a disconnect: you're calling this "not a lot", but I think it's exactly the "environment" and implicit guidance that the comment above is referring to. I don't think the reminiscence IS pointless! We can't realistically replicate precisely this for every kid today, but we can look at the things that worked about it (plenty of free time with a powerful, interesting machine?) and try to replicate those.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      If I say, my parents new how to put the toast in and press the button: that's "put the cassette in and type the writing on the side of the cassette". The command line was what you got when you turned the computer on, if you had no idea how to use it you typed words until you typed "work you stupid computer" and it responded "Syntax Error" or "Unknown Command" or something. >we can look at the things that worked // It really didn't work. You don't teach people to cook by leaving them in a kitchen until they discover there's a hidden fridge, and a hidden switch for the cooker, and they can cook food rather than eat the prepared food in the fridge, only they haven't found any recipes yet and they're all written in Korean (which I don't know). Guidance and access to resources is what I needed.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Your not a lot is quite a lot. And even with that, majority of kids won't end up programmers like you did. That is ok, I am pretty sure there were other things you did not learned in moms library and theoretically could. The school and education is my about that one kid that gets interested by itself. > spent quite a lot of time at a command line thinking of things to try writing Majority of kids won't do that, almost no one who has game accessible. I mean, I would not either and at a time I did not even spoke English to be able to guess words. And remembering back, the students who were behind in basic "how to deal with files" stuff were considered lost cases later on basically. They could be smart, but they would never be taught interesting bits.
crispyambulance 6y ago
I think this is more of a "first world" problem. Kids in under-resourced learning environments (regardless of whether it's Nigeria or 3rd world countries like most of the USA), need focus on fundamental academics (literacy and math) more than anything else. Computer literacy beyond browser/email/word-processing reduces down to a "nice-to-have" when actual literacy and learning is in question.

watwut 6y ago

Very frankly, most people who think they "just picked up" things up did not picked things those things up from nothing. They were in environment that provided enough information and idea about there are things to be picked up from. That is guidance. And looking at kids now, there is pretty often one kid who is shown basics by parent or video who then show part of those basics to other kids - when it comes to things they are interested in like minecraft. Then they bootstrap, but this is not like the first kid would divine minecraft servers exists. There was that information somewhere. Same applies to useful skills, except they are less likely to find fun stuff about writing documents or filesystem.

pbhjpbhj 6y ago
[Caution, pointless reminiscence.] >Very frankly, most people who think they "just picked up" things up did not picked things those things up from nothing. // Yeah, not from nothing, but sometimes from not a lot. I'm middle aged, when I learnt some programming I didn't [knowingly] know anyone who could program. My parents knew how to put the cassette in and load a program; the teachers at school didn't even know how to switch the thing on (or pretended not to?). The computer came with a manual and from that you could work out how to list programs and try changing them, some example listings were given to type in. High-school age my mum bought home a computer (orange screen and big turbo button; Win3 I think) as she was volunteer librarian at the school; eventually I found Qbasic on it and it had 3/4 example programs that I gleaned enough from to make a fractal drawing. I spent quite a lot of time at a command line thinking of things to try writing instead of "win" which loaded up MSWindows - most Basic I knew didn't do anything in DOS to my recollection! All text interfaces should always respond to "help"!! Wasn't until Uni that I found out there was such a thing as computer science. I mean I'd seen War Games by then and dreamt of having an audio-coupler for several years. I think I thought everyone just used computers if they could; like the guys who programmed spacecraft were just the people who made it. A little guidance at those early stages would have gone a long way I feel; but I'm sure some managed to grok gorilla.bas, or their equivalent, and bootstrap themselves in to full-on programming. Anyway, get off my lawn ...
- jkaptur 6y ago
  > My parents knew how to put the cassette in and load a program > The computer came with a manual > some example listings were given > my mum bought home a computer > she was volunteer librarian at the school > I spent quite a lot of time at a command line thinking I'm not sure if this is a disconnect: you're calling this "not a lot", but I think it's exactly the "environment" and implicit guidance that the comment above is referring to. I don't think the reminiscence IS pointless! We can't realistically replicate precisely this for every kid today, but we can look at the things that worked about it (plenty of free time with a powerful, interesting machine?) and try to replicate those.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    If I say, my parents new how to put the toast in and press the button: that's "put the cassette in and type the writing on the side of the cassette". The command line was what you got when you turned the computer on, if you had no idea how to use it you typed words until you typed "work you stupid computer" and it responded "Syntax Error" or "Unknown Command" or something. >we can look at the things that worked // It really didn't work. You don't teach people to cook by leaving them in a kitchen until they discover there's a hidden fridge, and a hidden switch for the cooker, and they can cook food rather than eat the prepared food in the fridge, only they haven't found any recipes yet and they're all written in Korean (which I don't know). Guidance and access to resources is what I needed.
- watwut 6y ago
  Your not a lot is quite a lot. And even with that, majority of kids won't end up programmers like you did. That is ok, I am pretty sure there were other things you did not learned in moms library and theoretically could. The school and education is my about that one kid that gets interested by itself. > spent quite a lot of time at a command line thinking of things to try writing Majority of kids won't do that, almost no one who has game accessible. I mean, I would not either and at a time I did not even spoke English to be able to guess words. And remembering back, the students who were behind in basic "how to deal with files" stuff were considered lost cases later on basically. They could be smart, but they would never be taught interesting bits.

crispyambulance 6y ago

I think this is more of a "first world" problem. Kids in under-resourced learning environments (regardless of whether it's Nigeria or 3rd world countries like most of the USA), need focus on fundamental academics (literacy and math) more than anything else. Computer literacy beyond browser/email/word-processing reduces down to a "nice-to-have" when actual literacy and learning is in question.