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I have a great deal of sympathy for anything printer/scanner related. This Oatmeal comic comes to mind [1]. However, I have heard anecdotally that recent unive

I have a great deal of sympathy for anything printer/scanner related. This Oatmeal comic comes to mind [1]. However, I have heard anecdotally that recent university class intakes for CS have been encountering the death of the desktop metaphor as a problem. I'm aware there are more instances of students (who have chosen to do CS) not knowing the first thing about hierarchical file management, folders, etc. It's definitely possible to get through secondary education using only a phone or perhaps a tablet. It's then totally unsurprising when people (other than PC gamers) have very little intuitive understanding of desktop computing. I don't know how much of a problem this really is, as people are generally fast learners, but it's a weird thought as someone who has used a "desktop" (laptops mostly) computer every day since about age 12. [1]: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers https://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers

Dalewyn 4y ago
I would caution you of rose-tinted glasses. Even during "our time" when computer literacy seemed universal, in reality we were just a small handful of nerds and the vast majority of the world didn't computer. We're over a fifth of the way through the 21st century now, and the vast majority of the world still doesn't computer while we still remain a small handful of nerds. The only difference is the generational turnover in the workforce, with more of us nerds getting into the field wondering why nobody computers.
- noodlesUK 4y ago
  That's a very valid point. I remember having to help my less tech-savvy friends constantly at university. You're absolutely right that it's never been universal in the workplace either. I have experienced endless incidents of people fiddling with projectors etc. I think my point is more that it's strange to me that people are ending up in CS programs without knowledge that certainly felt universal during "our time". I don't know how much it's a real issue though, as if you've selected CS as a course, you'll probably get up to speed fairly quickly.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >you'll probably get up to speed fairly quickly Or they switch majors if they decide it's not for them. As I was writing the other day, I'm not sure why CS as a technical discipline should uniquely require more than a standard high school curriculum in order to major in at university. And the fact is that very few high schoolers have learned much computer science even if they've hacked around with computers and Python a bit.
  - laurencerowe 4y ago
    > You're absolutely right that it's never been universal in the workplace either. I have experienced endless incidents of people fiddling with projectors etc. I like to think of myself as a pretty tech savvy person (I have held director level positions in FANG companies) but having interviewed again recently I still end up resorting to quitting and reconnecting when there’s no sound on my Google Meet/Zoom meeting. With 20 years of experience I have no real idea how to start debugging the problem. Maybe the problem wasn’t with the folks struggling with the projector?
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Yeah. I can assure you I've been to many events where you end up with a cluster of very technical people who present regularly and an AV tech struggling to get a projector working with someone's laptop. It's much better than it used to be but you still have random failures.
- leoedin 4y ago
  Yeah, there's been this common belief that "you kids are good at computers" throughout my life. Yes, the kids* aren't afraid of computers in the way that some people in my parents generation are, but there's still a massive spectrum of computer ability within each generation, and it corresponds more to mindset than age. People who are good at computers have good mental models of "systems" and aren't afraid to experiment. That's pretty much it. The individual pieces of knowledge come and go. * The kids are in their 30s now
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >good mental models of "systems" An Apple interface evangelist wrote a book years ago (Tog on Interface). Not really specific to Apple and you can believe or not the Meyers-Briggs data he used to bolster his argument. But it's almost certainly directionally correct that the engineers developing the software have a much better mental model of how the whole thing works and interacts than many of the users of that software.
eternityforest 4y ago
The desktop metaphor is still my favorite way of doing computers. Android is still heavily influenced by it, they hide it just enough, mostly with the hideous "Data lives in apps" idea that's more the fault of cloudmania than android itself.

Dalewyn 4y ago

I would caution you of rose-tinted glasses. Even during "our time" when computer literacy seemed universal, in reality we were just a small handful of nerds and the vast majority of the world didn't computer. We're over a fifth of the way through the 21st century now, and the vast majority of the world still doesn't computer while we still remain a small handful of nerds. The only difference is the generational turnover in the workforce, with more of us nerds getting into the field wondering why nobody computers.

noodlesUK 4y ago
That's a very valid point. I remember having to help my less tech-savvy friends constantly at university. You're absolutely right that it's never been universal in the workplace either. I have experienced endless incidents of people fiddling with projectors etc. I think my point is more that it's strange to me that people are ending up in CS programs without knowledge that certainly felt universal during "our time". I don't know how much it's a real issue though, as if you've selected CS as a course, you'll probably get up to speed fairly quickly.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >you'll probably get up to speed fairly quickly Or they switch majors if they decide it's not for them. As I was writing the other day, I'm not sure why CS as a technical discipline should uniquely require more than a standard high school curriculum in order to major in at university. And the fact is that very few high schoolers have learned much computer science even if they've hacked around with computers and Python a bit.
- laurencerowe 4y ago
  > You're absolutely right that it's never been universal in the workplace either. I have experienced endless incidents of people fiddling with projectors etc. I like to think of myself as a pretty tech savvy person (I have held director level positions in FANG companies) but having interviewed again recently I still end up resorting to quitting and reconnecting when there’s no sound on my Google Meet/Zoom meeting. With 20 years of experience I have no real idea how to start debugging the problem. Maybe the problem wasn’t with the folks struggling with the projector?
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Yeah. I can assure you I've been to many events where you end up with a cluster of very technical people who present regularly and an AV tech struggling to get a projector working with someone's laptop. It's much better than it used to be but you still have random failures.
leoedin 4y ago
Yeah, there's been this common belief that "you kids are good at computers" throughout my life. Yes, the kids* aren't afraid of computers in the way that some people in my parents generation are, but there's still a massive spectrum of computer ability within each generation, and it corresponds more to mindset than age. People who are good at computers have good mental models of "systems" and aren't afraid to experiment. That's pretty much it. The individual pieces of knowledge come and go. * The kids are in their 30s now
- ghaff 4y ago
  >good mental models of "systems" An Apple interface evangelist wrote a book years ago (Tog on Interface). Not really specific to Apple and you can believe or not the Meyers-Briggs data he used to bolster his argument. But it's almost certainly directionally correct that the engineers developing the software have a much better mental model of how the whole thing works and interacts than many of the users of that software.

eternityforest 4y ago

The desktop metaphor is still my favorite way of doing computers. Android is still heavily influenced by it, they hide it just enough, mostly with the hideous "Data lives in apps" idea that's more the fault of cloudmania than android itself.