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Understanding that the computer is a stupid, un-magical machine which obeys only (and exactly!) the instructions you give it is somewhat of a prerequisite for s
by gknoy 13y ago
Understanding that the computer is a stupid, un-magical machine which obeys only (and exactly!) the instructions you give it is somewhat of a prerequisite for successfully writing computer programs. (Not exactly true, but it's very helpful.)
Understanding that the computer is non-magical also means that your computer users may be more likely to understand how to troubleshoot errors ("Was it something I did, or something out of my control?").
- mhurron 13y agoCoding doesn't teach you that. I have programmers that write commercial software opening tickets to change their shell prompt, or to enable VNC on a Linux build server because they 'can't be expected to learn how these systems work, they're programmers.' What you want people to learn is basic system maintenance and troubleshooting.
- jiggy2011 13y agoIt helps a lot in a general sense, being able to reason through how a system might work can give you a lot more confidence in figuring out where to start on a problem. Of course when it comes to very specific issues it is always nice to have the luxury of opening a ticket and letting somebody who can do it 1/10th the time fix it for you.