3 ms·

<<The latter is arbitrary and mostly meaningless>> Although I'm a terrible speller myself, often arbitrary conventions are important for communication w/ both

by Jd 19y ago

<<The latter is arbitrary and mostly meaningless>> Although I'm a terrible speller myself, often arbitrary conventions are important for communication w/ both humans and machines. Why does lisp use parens instead of brackets? Arbitrary, but your code won't work if you change it. Why should a spoken/written language be otherwise? <There is no doubt that such a system would educate more fully, and more broadly, than high school.>> Speak for yourself. I certainly would not entrust the education of my children to Microsoft.

jimbokun 19y ago
I suspect the use of italics indicate sarcasm.
- mynameishere 19y ago
  No. But I did intend the word "microsoft" to be a placeholder for any given company. Maybe that was unwise given the ms-hatred around here. Really--high school is all but worthless, and learning software design + 0..n domain-related topics at a company would be...immeasurably...more valuable than sitting in social studies class.
  - Jd 19y ago
    I agree high school may be mostly worthless for people who are set on one particular career path. My brother wanted to be a cook - dropped out of HS - and now attends the Culinary Institute of America. Should graduate at 19 w/ a degree & mucho work exp. Still, this seems to come back to PG's hackers & painters essay. I agree w/ him that the best people in any given field are those that don't stay entirely w/in that field. Living completely w/in the realm of domain specific knowledge is like living in a fishbowl. There are other waters & aquariums - if you swim in them a little bit you can learn enough so you can decorate yours a little better. At least that's my two bits. Also, doesn't look like you got down-modded for your MS comment so I don't think you can claim to be on the receiving end of any hatred. For my part, if you said google/yahoo/ibm my response would be the same. I just don't want that for my kids.

by Jd 19y ago

jimbokun 19y ago

I suspect the use of italics indicate sarcasm.

mynameishere 19y ago
No. But I did intend the word "microsoft" to be a placeholder for any given company. Maybe that was unwise given the ms-hatred around here. Really--high school is all but worthless, and learning software design + 0..n domain-related topics at a company would be...immeasurably...more valuable than sitting in social studies class.
- Jd 19y ago
  I agree high school may be mostly worthless for people who are set on one particular career path. My brother wanted to be a cook - dropped out of HS - and now attends the Culinary Institute of America. Should graduate at 19 w/ a degree & mucho work exp. Still, this seems to come back to PG's hackers & painters essay. I agree w/ him that the best people in any given field are those that don't stay entirely w/in that field. Living completely w/in the realm of domain specific knowledge is like living in a fishbowl. There are other waters & aquariums - if you swim in them a little bit you can learn enough so you can decorate yours a little better. At least that's my two bits. Also, doesn't look like you got down-modded for your MS comment so I don't think you can claim to be on the receiving end of any hatred. For my part, if you said google/yahoo/ibm my response would be the same. I just don't want that for my kids.