15 ms·

Now that the iPad kid generation is growing up, I fear most don't even know what a file system is. The post desktop world is real. Abstractions are comfortable

Now that the iPad kid generation is growing up, I fear most don't even know what a file system is. The post desktop world is real. Abstractions are comfortable, but they might reduce the number of techie teenagers like OP in the future, and that worries me a lot

aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
HankB99 3y ago
Tomorrow I'll strike a blow for this. I got my (12 year old) grandson a Pi 5 for Christmas. I plan to spend as much time as he'll allow on-boarding and hopefully he'll learn the fundamentals. At the very least he'll need to learn how to open a terminal and launch the Docker container that runs a Minecraft server. :) There are other things that are included with the full RpiOS install that he can explore as well, like Scratch, Mathematica and Wolfram. And a few games that I tried and are absolutely horrible. His father, my son, earns a pretty good living writing code (and now managing a group that does this) and should be highly motivated to assist with motivation.
- gerdesj 3y ago
  Good man. I gave my granddaughter (strictly speaking, my wife's grand daughter, but she calls me granddad and always has. She also now has a sister) a laptop running Ubuntu at the start of the first covid lock down in the UK. She still uses it. Mostly to watch crap on Youtube, I gather, but who am I to judge? It is tethered to my home router via OpenVPN and I patch it from time to time. I have an ISO27000 registration to keep on top of 8) That laptop was a customer cast off, destined for the skip.
throwaway3090 3y ago
https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc... “Take their phones away and get ‘em on Windows 98.” That seems unnecessarily cruel though.
Cockbrand 3y ago
What if files just aren’t relevant as an abstraction any more, 40+ years later? As most data lives somewhere in a database the cloud anyway, the concept of a file as a somewhat tangible, autonomous chunk of information may just be outdated.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
passwordoops 3y ago
In the same we should be worried that people don't know how to grow their own food, procure their own heat, or build and thrive in a community. Not being snarky, I am genuinely worried about that
- rqtwteye 3y ago
  Or how a car works. I am always surprised that a lot of young people have no idea how many cylinders their car has or how to do an oil change, never mind any real repair.
  - throwaway3090 3y ago
    Although, maybe that's ok. My car has 0 cylinders and doesn't require oil changes.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- arnaudsm 3y ago
  Great comparison, that's even more worrying. If we suddenly loose fossil fuels and fertilizers, the lack of agricultural skills will probably kill billions.
  - setr 3y ago
    Unless you’re in full apocalypse mode, every man for themselves, I’d expect for the most case people will learn from their neighbors quickly enough — as long as a survivable subset of the population knows what they’re doing What’s going to kill billions is the lack of industrialized farming productivity, but you don’t expect every individual to know how to resolve that
    - berkes 3y ago
      I doubt even the lack of industrialized farming productivity will "kill billions". It will certainly switch diets and most probably cause hunger and malnutrition for some time. But we can support billions of people, given the right diets. We cannot support billions of people's mcnuggets, beef burgers or cornflakes with milk. About a third of my food comes from stuff I make, grow and harvest myself. I can up that, if I need, but preparing, growing and harvesting are a hobby, not a full-time endeavor. I'm certain I can't up it to 100%. Maybe not even 50%. But some neighbor, friends and family can help out (and I them) and I'm certain with some ~100 people we could be self-sufficient. Sober, sure. But not dead. (I would die from lack of insulin within months, though. TII. So I am aware of how dependent on industry and high tech I am)
loughnane 3y ago
My nephew, a sharp kid who started his freshman year at college in September, saw me working on my computer a year ago. He asked what I was doing and I said, “making a website”. He asked, reasonably, how do you do that? Not wanting to get into details I said “it’s just writing some files that chrome can then read”. He asked, “what’s a file”? I told him, but I was floored. He’s not every kid, but it’s had me thinking about how younger folks (I’m 38) will see computers.
- ptek 3y ago
  A workmate (I do labouring and was doing traffic control that day) brought her teenage son a PS5. I don't know why parents would purchase consoles for their children as you don't learn any transferable skills (I guess you could be a streamer). I'm not saying being a sadist and give the kid a second hand laptop with *BSD because then the kid will want nothing to do with computers, especially if the laptop is cheap and doesn't have a working driver support (This is where Linux is better from my personal experience). This is also why I like HTML, I got a free internet CD with Netscape Navigator in 1996 when I was 12 and the three working examples (two with Netscape Navigator and one was a html email with Netscape Mail and News client) I had, I was able to play around with and create and learn basic HTML until I got a modem in 1998.
  - dpig_ 3y ago
    > I don't know why parents would purchase consoles for their children as you don't learn any transferable skills It's plausible that parents may just want their children to enjoy some leisure? To not feel like every experience in childhood should be preparation for labour?
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      As a child, I was disappointed when I got a BBC B instead of a Megadrive. But I definitely learned more, and some of my leisure time was programming in BBC Basic.
      - 3y ago
lxgr 3y ago
On the other hand, single-board computers are now both more capable and more affordable than ever, and arguably more open than most of the WIntel PCs I cut my teeth on (at least until I got my own and installed Linux on it).
- arnaudsm 3y ago
  The UX of entry level laptops is terrible. Windows 11 + vendor bloatware are poisoning the well, I completely get why people are going iPad-only
  - wintogreen74 3y ago
    except the ease and frictionless experience of iPads and most phones, combined with curated ecosysmtems of apps, means you never have to see how the sausage is made, or learn how to make your own
    - OnlyMortal 3y ago
      That’s the whole point. They’re an appliance like a dish washer, fridge or TV. They’re not marketed as a computer.
bsder 3y ago
> Abstractions are comfortable No, those abstractions are invisible. Most teenagers simply don't understand that a phone and a tablet and a desktop and a laptop and a cloud server are all computers. They don't understand that an app and a web page and that thing you install on a desktop are all programs. As soon as you educate them such that those abstractions become visible, the questions start to flow naturally.
Dolototo 3y ago
I don't think we were ever normal. The entry barrier got so much lower with learning overall. Humans just don't care in avg how shit works.
baz00 3y ago
Yeah just teaching my 17 year old to torrent stuff. That was a learning curve and a half for her. So you don't know what File Explorer is?

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

HankB99 3y ago

Tomorrow I'll strike a blow for this. I got my (12 year old) grandson a Pi 5 for Christmas. I plan to spend as much time as he'll allow on-boarding and hopefully he'll learn the fundamentals. At the very least he'll need to learn how to open a terminal and launch the Docker container that runs a Minecraft server. :) There are other things that are included with the full RpiOS install that he can explore as well, like Scratch, Mathematica and Wolfram. And a few games that I tried and are absolutely horrible. His father, my son, earns a pretty good living writing code (and now managing a group that does this) and should be highly motivated to assist with motivation.

gerdesj 3y ago
Good man. I gave my granddaughter (strictly speaking, my wife's grand daughter, but she calls me granddad and always has. She also now has a sister) a laptop running Ubuntu at the start of the first covid lock down in the UK. She still uses it. Mostly to watch crap on Youtube, I gather, but who am I to judge? It is tethered to my home router via OpenVPN and I patch it from time to time. I have an ISO27000 registration to keep on top of 8) That laptop was a customer cast off, destined for the skip.

throwaway3090 3y ago

https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc... “Take their phones away and get ‘em on Windows 98.” That seems unnecessarily cruel though.

Cockbrand 3y ago

What if files just aren’t relevant as an abstraction any more, 40+ years later? As most data lives somewhere in a database the cloud anyway, the concept of a file as a somewhat tangible, autonomous chunk of information may just be outdated.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

passwordoops 3y ago

In the same we should be worried that people don't know how to grow their own food, procure their own heat, or build and thrive in a community. Not being snarky, I am genuinely worried about that

rqtwteye 3y ago
Or how a car works. I am always surprised that a lot of young people have no idea how many cylinders their car has or how to do an oil change, never mind any real repair.
- throwaway3090 3y ago
  Although, maybe that's ok. My car has 0 cylinders and doesn't require oil changes.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
arnaudsm 3y ago
Great comparison, that's even more worrying. If we suddenly loose fossil fuels and fertilizers, the lack of agricultural skills will probably kill billions.
- setr 3y ago
  Unless you’re in full apocalypse mode, every man for themselves, I’d expect for the most case people will learn from their neighbors quickly enough — as long as a survivable subset of the population knows what they’re doing What’s going to kill billions is the lack of industrialized farming productivity, but you don’t expect every individual to know how to resolve that
  - berkes 3y ago
    I doubt even the lack of industrialized farming productivity will "kill billions". It will certainly switch diets and most probably cause hunger and malnutrition for some time. But we can support billions of people, given the right diets. We cannot support billions of people's mcnuggets, beef burgers or cornflakes with milk. About a third of my food comes from stuff I make, grow and harvest myself. I can up that, if I need, but preparing, growing and harvesting are a hobby, not a full-time endeavor. I'm certain I can't up it to 100%. Maybe not even 50%. But some neighbor, friends and family can help out (and I them) and I'm certain with some ~100 people we could be self-sufficient. Sober, sure. But not dead. (I would die from lack of insulin within months, though. TII. So I am aware of how dependent on industry and high tech I am)

loughnane 3y ago

My nephew, a sharp kid who started his freshman year at college in September, saw me working on my computer a year ago. He asked what I was doing and I said, “making a website”. He asked, reasonably, how do you do that? Not wanting to get into details I said “it’s just writing some files that chrome can then read”. He asked, “what’s a file”? I told him, but I was floored. He’s not every kid, but it’s had me thinking about how younger folks (I’m 38) will see computers.

ptek 3y ago
A workmate (I do labouring and was doing traffic control that day) brought her teenage son a PS5. I don't know why parents would purchase consoles for their children as you don't learn any transferable skills (I guess you could be a streamer). I'm not saying being a sadist and give the kid a second hand laptop with *BSD because then the kid will want nothing to do with computers, especially if the laptop is cheap and doesn't have a working driver support (This is where Linux is better from my personal experience). This is also why I like HTML, I got a free internet CD with Netscape Navigator in 1996 when I was 12 and the three working examples (two with Netscape Navigator and one was a html email with Netscape Mail and News client) I had, I was able to play around with and create and learn basic HTML until I got a modem in 1998.
- dpig_ 3y ago
  > I don't know why parents would purchase consoles for their children as you don't learn any transferable skills It's plausible that parents may just want their children to enjoy some leisure? To not feel like every experience in childhood should be preparation for labour?
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    As a child, I was disappointed when I got a BBC B instead of a Megadrive. But I definitely learned more, and some of my leisure time was programming in BBC Basic.
    - 3y ago

lxgr 3y ago

On the other hand, single-board computers are now both more capable and more affordable than ever, and arguably more open than most of the WIntel PCs I cut my teeth on (at least until I got my own and installed Linux on it).

arnaudsm 3y ago
The UX of entry level laptops is terrible. Windows 11 + vendor bloatware are poisoning the well, I completely get why people are going iPad-only
- wintogreen74 3y ago
  except the ease and frictionless experience of iPads and most phones, combined with curated ecosysmtems of apps, means you never have to see how the sausage is made, or learn how to make your own
  - OnlyMortal 3y ago
    That’s the whole point. They’re an appliance like a dish washer, fridge or TV. They’re not marketed as a computer.

bsder 3y ago

> Abstractions are comfortable No, those abstractions are invisible. Most teenagers simply don't understand that a phone and a tablet and a desktop and a laptop and a cloud server are all computers. They don't understand that an app and a web page and that thing you install on a desktop are all programs. As soon as you educate them such that those abstractions become visible, the questions start to flow naturally.

Dolototo 3y ago

I don't think we were ever normal. The entry barrier got so much lower with learning overall. Humans just don't care in avg how shit works.

baz00 3y ago

Yeah just teaching my 17 year old to torrent stuff. That was a learning curve and a half for her. So you don't know what File Explorer is?