4 ms·

I think it's actually designed for those who do not understand or do not care what an operating system is. You should know what a spleen does and how to tell i

I think it's actually designed for those who do not understand or do not care what an operating system is. You should know what a spleen does and how to tell if it's healthy - if you're a doctor. You should know what a tappet does and how you can fix it - if you're a car mechanic. You should know what a tort does and how you can serve one - if you're a lawyer. The Doctor, Lawyer, mechanic can be intelligent, dedicated, passionate people. Just not about computers. Why on earth should they care about operating systems more than you care about spleens, torts or tappets? What makes you special?

dstorrs 17y ago
One of Heinlein's more famous quotes is: "“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”" Now, most of the specifics here are things that normal people could do (cook a meal, etc). Few of them ("plan an invasion") are something that require substantial training. But his point is that people should be well-rounded, not specialized. The problem is, generalization isn't rewarded in any modern culture that I'm aware of. The phrase "age of the specialist" is well known; people who are fantastic experts at (neurosurgery|IP law|graphics coding|etc) and utterly incompetent outside their field of expertise always have higher status and salaries than JOATs who can turn their hand to anything and do a decent job, but don't have great mastery at any one thing. It's even hard to argue which approach is better; who is more likely to make a significant new discovery, the scientist who knows every little detail of his entire field and can synthesize all of them, or the scientist with decent familiarity with half a dozen fields, that has bring a cross-disciplinary approach to the problem? I suppose there's a place for both. Certainly, when you have a knee surgery done, the guy you want to go to is the one who does nothing but knees, 4-8 operations per week, and not the guy who does whatever kind of surgery comes into his OR.

dstorrs 17y ago

One of Heinlein's more famous quotes is: "“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”" Now, most of the specifics here are things that normal people could do (cook a meal, etc). Few of them ("plan an invasion") are something that require substantial training. But his point is that people should be well-rounded, not specialized. The problem is, generalization isn't rewarded in any modern culture that I'm aware of. The phrase "age of the specialist" is well known; people who are fantastic experts at (neurosurgery|IP law|graphics coding|etc) and utterly incompetent outside their field of expertise always have higher status and salaries than JOATs who can turn their hand to anything and do a decent job, but don't have great mastery at any one thing. It's even hard to argue which approach is better; who is more likely to make a significant new discovery, the scientist who knows every little detail of his entire field and can synthesize all of them, or the scientist with decent familiarity with half a dozen fields, that has bring a cross-disciplinary approach to the problem? I suppose there's a place for both. Certainly, when you have a knee surgery done, the guy you want to go to is the one who does nothing but knees, 4-8 operations per week, and not the guy who does whatever kind of surgery comes into his OR.