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People want to drive cars, not all of them want to be mechanics. People want their phones and software to just work. Or at the very least not get bricked every

People want to drive cars, not all of them want to be mechanics. People want their phones and software to just work. Or at the very least not get bricked every friggin update.

nightski 6y ago
I think that is a terrible analogy. A car for the most part has a single purpose. Technology offers humans a lot more than just getting from point A to point B. If you only are capable of utilizing the bare minimum it's going to make life a lot harder. Take excel for example, the people who are able to reason about and write their own advanced excel spreadsheets in the workforce have a huge leg above those who only can do what the UI lets them do on their phone. There is a lot more to computing than treating it like a hammer.
- 6_past_30_til_6 6y ago
  You can’t say that they have a leg up in general because It Depends. I’m an engineer and my job is computational fluid dynamics (CFD). My dissertation involved developing highly parallelized solution algorithms for a specific type of problem. As such, I am quite well versed in low level Fortran/C code and MPI because I wrote code to do that, “that” being to solve an equation. I know this set of equations like it was second nature because of how much time I’ve invested in it. Not only that, but I would consider myself somewhat of an “expert” in the underlying mechanisms to solve these equations. Those being finite element methods. I can talk to you about tensor spaces and discretization and derivation of the numerical algorithms to solve these problems. I’d consider the code that I wrote/extended to be tech. My current job role is “just” an engineer working for a company where all I basically do is run and analyze models using commercial software. Even though I know the underlying low level code/algorithms of what I’m doing, I would be the first to tell you that a 21 year old mechanical engineering graduate could do my job as effectively and as completely as I could. Because none of the above paragraph actually matters in what I do. Maybe it gave me a leg up in the hiring process, but the knowledge I am applying for my job (which I enjoy) is what you’d learn in a 4 year degree with electives in eg numerical methods and fluid dynamics.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > A car for the most part has a single purpose. Technology offers humans a lot more than just getting from point A to point B. Sure, a car is just one example of technology. Technology in general is responsible for everything we have and everything we do. Here are some other technologies: - farming - weaving - plastic - glass - ceramics - steel - cooking To the nearest 0.0001%, 100% of people need these things to work and don't -- and can't -- understand why or how they work. That's the point of technology.
  - nightski 6y ago
    Way too broad of a definition. I clearly meant computing and how a person interacts with their devices as that was the discussion at hand.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      Why would this differ from any other technology?
      - nightski 6y ago
        I'm really surprised to hear you question how computing is different from any other technology? General purpose computing is extremely broad in scope. It's used in everything from finance, design, manufacturing, communication, engineering, medical, entertainment - pretty much every field or industry in the world has been impacted by it. More so than any other technology in existence. Even something like gasoline has had less impact than computing. Being able to take advantage of this powerful tool is a huge leg up on life. There are countless applications of computers in our daily lives. To just ignore that and use them for their bare minimum function is quite sad!
        thaumasiotes 6y ago
        > It's used in everything from finance, design, manufacturing, communication, engineering, medical, entertainment - pretty much every field or industry in the world has been impacted by it. More so than any other technology in existence. Nope. Farming has this beat hands down. So does writing. (I unlisted writing from my earlier comment because, unlike other technologies, anyone capable of using writing must also have a good understanding of how it works.)

People want to drive cars, not all of them want to be mechanics. People want their phones and software to just work. Or at the very least not get bricked every friggin update.

nightski 6y ago

I think that is a terrible analogy. A car for the most part has a single purpose. Technology offers humans a lot more than just getting from point A to point B. If you only are capable of utilizing the bare minimum it's going to make life a lot harder. Take excel for example, the people who are able to reason about and write their own advanced excel spreadsheets in the workforce have a huge leg above those who only can do what the UI lets them do on their phone. There is a lot more to computing than treating it like a hammer.

6_past_30_til_6 6y ago
You can’t say that they have a leg up in general because It Depends. I’m an engineer and my job is computational fluid dynamics (CFD). My dissertation involved developing highly parallelized solution algorithms for a specific type of problem. As such, I am quite well versed in low level Fortran/C code and MPI because I wrote code to do that, “that” being to solve an equation. I know this set of equations like it was second nature because of how much time I’ve invested in it. Not only that, but I would consider myself somewhat of an “expert” in the underlying mechanisms to solve these equations. Those being finite element methods. I can talk to you about tensor spaces and discretization and derivation of the numerical algorithms to solve these problems. I’d consider the code that I wrote/extended to be tech. My current job role is “just” an engineer working for a company where all I basically do is run and analyze models using commercial software. Even though I know the underlying low level code/algorithms of what I’m doing, I would be the first to tell you that a 21 year old mechanical engineering graduate could do my job as effectively and as completely as I could. Because none of the above paragraph actually matters in what I do. Maybe it gave me a leg up in the hiring process, but the knowledge I am applying for my job (which I enjoy) is what you’d learn in a 4 year degree with electives in eg numerical methods and fluid dynamics.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
thaumasiotes 6y ago
> A car for the most part has a single purpose. Technology offers humans a lot more than just getting from point A to point B. Sure, a car is just one example of technology. Technology in general is responsible for everything we have and everything we do. Here are some other technologies: - farming - weaving - plastic - glass - ceramics - steel - cooking To the nearest 0.0001%, 100% of people need these things to work and don't -- and can't -- understand why or how they work. That's the point of technology.
- nightski 6y ago
  Way too broad of a definition. I clearly meant computing and how a person interacts with their devices as that was the discussion at hand.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    Why would this differ from any other technology?
    - nightski 6y ago
      I'm really surprised to hear you question how computing is different from any other technology? General purpose computing is extremely broad in scope. It's used in everything from finance, design, manufacturing, communication, engineering, medical, entertainment - pretty much every field or industry in the world has been impacted by it. More so than any other technology in existence. Even something like gasoline has had less impact than computing. Being able to take advantage of this powerful tool is a huge leg up on life. There are countless applications of computers in our daily lives. To just ignore that and use them for their bare minimum function is quite sad!
      - thaumasiotes 6y ago
        > It's used in everything from finance, design, manufacturing, communication, engineering, medical, entertainment - pretty much every field or industry in the world has been impacted by it. More so than any other technology in existence. Nope. Farming has this beat hands down. So does writing. (I unlisted writing from my earlier comment because, unlike other technologies, anyone capable of using writing must also have a good understanding of how it works.)