Report suggests many Gen Z students do not know how to use a basic file directory

[aramini]

46 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

If you ask me, knowing how the hierarchical file structure system of a computer looks like and how it works, is just as "basic" knowledge as knowing how a switch stores and updates information in its MAC address table.

You only separate the two as "basic knowledge" and "fine detail" because you know one of those things and not the other.

So someone either knows everything there is to know about a particular thing, or they know nothing about it. Ok, I see where you are coming from, and it seems pretty arrogant to me. So your whole life, you always knew how everything worked on a very deep level, even as a child. You didn't start out with a basic idea and learn more as you progressed. Either you're a gifted genius or you aren't being honest and making  a lot of assumptions about someone you don't even know and don't know what they know or don't know.

 

My point is not to come off as some superior authority, but rather distinguish the difference and varying levels of knowledge amongst different people regarding any particular subject matter.

 

It's a matter of relative difficulty. If you know nothing about a subject, then everything regarding that subject is new and perhaps difficult at first. I wouldn't expect the average person who never encountered a subject to know anything about it.

 

But someone who is at college level hasn't learned it before? Then what are they teaching in grade school and high school these days?

 

You will have to write papers in college. Should you just now be learning grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, etc? One would hope that by the time one is college bound, they would know these things, or they are going to have a hell of a hard time the first few years in college.

[aramini]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Meanwhile, how a switch works was something we learned in like 20 minutes in the basic network course I took. So isn't that basic knowledge then? It is certainly not "expert knowledge" that requires years of studying. 

Maybe you or "we" learned it in 20 minutes. Maybe others took 2 hours, and others took 20hrs, and others took 2 weeks to grasp the ideas, and others still never got it and gave up and didn't pursue it further and now they don't work in the Tech field.

 

Unless you already had a working knowledge of the things involved in how a switch worked (either from some other class or your own research) I call bs. Maybe learning how a switch works doesn't take that long but there are a lot of concepts that are related to a switch that if you didn't already know, it would take much much longer to learn how a switch works. Unless what you think of about how a switch works, is really only a very basic understanding on your part, in which case, again, I call bs. Unless it was how a switch works on a conceptual level and not how a layer 3 managed Cisco switch works, ios (nothing to do with apple) included.

 

Are you wanting me to write a dissertation on how routers, switches, dns, route tables, mac tables, packets, protocols, the electricity that powers the switches and routers, etcetera, etcetera  work just to satisfy you on some personal level? (Kinda sounds like it)

 

I phrased it the way I phrased it in previous replies for the sake of brevity.

 

I know how routers and switches and the Internet, and DNS, and TCP/IP and UDP, and Fibre Channel, and iSCSi work. I used to work for an Enterprise SAN vendor. The 'N' in SAN is for Network.

 

Congratulations on learning things in 20 minutes. I didn't know it was a contest. I was new to SAN, and a lot of the technology at the company I worked for was proprietary, so not taught in a college course back then, other than in a generalized way. It took me 6 months to learn and have a solid working knowledge of the specific implementation of the technology and the products of the company I worked for that I would have to support. This was not on an expert level either, that would take years. They had over 300 products and they weren't exactly liberal with their training  beyond the 4 weeks they gave us during the onboarding process.

 

A lot of the manuals and guides were proprietary and guarded as trade secrets (wouldn't find a copy on the Internet easily). You'd contractually have to have a Field Tech go onsite to assist the clients with issues. You could not give the manual or any part thereof to the customer. These systems were upwards of millions of dollars. So a lot of money was on the line if say a huge bank lost data due to our fault (it was in the contract between the client and the company). It was one of the most stressful jobs I have ever had.

 

 

[Bramimond]

2 hours ago, aramini said:

Yeah again, the more studious and efficient students will read the material ahead of time

You didn't answer how they are supposed to prepare before class for this thing that they do not know a single thing about. How do you learn something specific that you don't even know exists and isn't related to the course at hand at all? 

 

Those students were studying psychology and physics, how were they supposed to know that they had to first learn some basics of information technology? The instructor just assumed that this is something everyone must know, but it isn't anymore.

[aramini]

9 minutes ago, Bramimond said:

You didn't answer how they are supposed to prepare before class for this thing that they do not know a single thing about. How do you learn something specific that you don't even know exists and isn't related to the course at hand at all? 

 

Those students were studying psychology and physics, how where they supposed to know that they had to first learn some basics of information technology?

When I was in school, we were given books. We were given a syllabus or outline of the course on day one. We could read ahead, by looking at the syllabus, one could know what topic was going to be covered on what date. We could read ahead if we wanted. Not everyone did. Some people dropped the class.

 

[Bramimond]

1 minute ago, aramini said:

When I was in school, we were given books. We were given a syllabus or outline of the course on day one. We could read ahead, by looking at the syllabus, one could know what topic was going to be covered on what date. We could read ahead if we wanted. Not everyone did. Some people dropped the class.

I'm pretty sure those books didn't cover how to write notes with a pen. The missing knowledge here wasn't related to the content of the course at all. 

[aramini]

58 minutes ago, Bramimond said:

I'm pretty sure those books didn't cover how to write notes with a pen. The missing knowledge here wasn't related to the content of the course at all. 

The books also didn't cover how to use an alarm clock, how to shower or get dressed or tie a shoe or pack a backpack with books (most students, myself included, did not have a laptop back then in the early to late 90s) or how to eat breakfast, all in preparation for attending class, but not related to the content of the class either.

 

Wait, I'm taking a course that might involve using a computer, it's the digital age after all. Hmm maybe I should learn how to use a computer (if it is something that I don't feel comfortable with and isn't the subject or content of the class). Hmm maybe I should familiarize myself with certain tools (a computer) prior to the class starting. Hmm, maybe I should take a class in advanced math and expect them to teach me how to use a calculator.

 

Or nah, forget foresight, forget taking initiative. I'll just rely on the (college?) class to tell me everything I need to know about everything I will ever encounter in life.

 

My generation was one of the last generations to not have Internet access during primary and secondary school. I figured stuff out back then without a computer, or Internet. I wish we had the conveniences and technological resources back then that students have today (and often take for granted).

 

When I did have Internet, it was 14.4Kbps dial-up at first, then 33Kbps dial-up, then eventually 56Kbps and then 784K ADSL (due to limitations on distance from the telco central office).

 

Do you even know or have any concept of how long it took to research things back then on a sloooooow connection? Yet I was determined to learn on my own. I wasn't born knowing the stuff either.

 

Recent generations have access to more information than anyone in the past ever had at faster speeds than ever and all they want to do is complain or make excuses or argue for the sake of arguing. Gen Z isn't dumb, but they sure are a bunch of entitled, spoiled, brats (generally speaking, in my experience).

 

I guess it is the professor's fault then for not uploading class notes that explain everything in grave detail.

 

Actually, I've taken courses where the professor did just that, explaining all the resources we'd need, outline of the course, books required, computer system minimum requirements, software that we needed to use (this was a C++ programming class) in a paper based packet he put together himself and sold at the college bookstore, and was mandatory to buy for the class. And if you chose not to buy it, you'd  be at a serious disadvantage. And this was at a local junior college, not Harvard.

 

But hey, just blame everyone and everything else. Don't take responsibility for your own learning. It's your education and your (or your parents) money. I am concerned for this generation because I have nieces, but other than that, it's not really my problem. I have my own consulting business, so I don't have to deal with co-workers or bosses of younger generation or any generation.

 

By the way, when you work for yourself in a sole proprietorship, you better get damn good at figuring things out on your own, no one is gonna hold your hand there either. It's all on you. No support or backing of a team or big company. A lot of times you are flying solo, just you and the Internet for researching and solving your own problems. And no you can't anticipate everything that might arise, so you have to deal with things as they come up, and often find or make time to do that (when you are already very busy and your time is already a valuable commodity that you cannot afford to just waste haphazardly).

[Mark Kaine]

14 hours ago, 12345678 said:

if you grow up with a phone/socials, folders are not really something that you will ever touch; though I don't think that's restricted to gen Z

Why how, its right there? 

 

I wouldn't touch "cloud storage" with a bargepole though,  you lose your login or there's a "server error" and you lose everything (plus those suckers use compression)

 

I've seen 2 "gen z" girls recently struggling to find more storage on their phones discussing what to delete,  seemed they knew very well how a "folder" structure works...

 

That said, I dont think computers should use a folder structure at all nowadays,  the whole way computers work nowadays reminds me of the old Star Trek movie where Scotty tries to talk to the computer...

 

The programming tech we use today is incredibly old-fashioned , outdated and clumsy, and programmers seemingly completely unable to think out of the box, they think thats how things need to be done and there are no alternatives (especially prominent in the "Linux community" strangely enough)

 

 

 

[aramini]

37 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

I wouldn't touch "cloud storage" with a bargepole though,  you lose your login or there's a "server error" and you lose everything (plus those suckers use compression)

 

I mean you could always do a password reset, unless you are talking about the file encryption. Compression to save space, yeah unpacking it might take a while, but uncompressed is going to lead to bigger files and therefore longer transfer times. I don't like "cloud storage", but for different reasons.

 

42 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

That said, I dont think computers should use a folder structure at all nowadays,  the whole way computers work nowadays reminds me of the old Star Trek movie where Scotty tries to talk to the computer...

 

So what would be a good alternative design? A flat, metadata based system? How then to handle file permissions easily on a multi-user system? What if you need more than 1 version of a software installed for some reason? How do you easily separate the versions so they don't overwrite each other? And many other considerations.

 

36 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

The programming tech we use today is incredibly old-fashioned , outdated and clumsy, and programmers seemingly completely unable to think out of the box, they think thats how things need to be done and there are no alternatives (especially prominent in the "Linux community" strangely enough)

There is a certain level of elitism in the Linux community, I agree. But unlike Microsoft or Apple, if you don't like how Linux works and have the time, and interest, you have access to the source code, and at least have a shot at making it behave or do whatever you want. Unless you just want to wait until someone or some group within the community does it for you. In which case I wouldn't hold my breath. It would be a huge undertaking for one person to do though.

[Bramimond]

2 hours ago, aramini said:

Wait, I'm taking a course that might involve using a computer, it's the digital age after all. Hmm maybe I should learn how to use a computer (if it is something that I don't feel comfortable with and isn't the subject or content of the class). Hmm maybe I should familiarize myself with certain tools (a computer) prior to the class starting. Hmm, maybe I should take a class in advanced math and expect them to teach me how to use a calculator.

So you'd buy a computer for at least a few hundred dollars that you have no use for just to prepare yourself for a class that may or may not be related to the stuff you can do with your own computer?

Also, if you figured everything out by yourself, why even bother with college. You can just go to a library and have everything you need to learn everything. 

 

It's even worse today. With the Internet, there truly isn't much you cannot just learn by yourself. So paying for college, maybe there is an expectation that they teach you something so you don't have to just do it yourself. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

That said, I dont think computers should use a folder structure at all nowadays,  the whole way computers work nowadays reminds me of the old Star Trek movie where Scotty tries to talk to the computer...

What should they use instead? Folder structure seems like a very reasonable thing to me. Or rather, what problem do you have that cannot be solved while having a folder structure?

[Mark Kaine]

Quote

 

1 hour ago, aramini said:

So what would be a good alternative design? A flat, metadata based system? How then to handle file permissions easily on a multi-user system? What if you need more than 1 version of a software installed for some reason? How do you easily separate the versions so they don't overwrite each other? And many other considerations.

I don't know, but this is a good example how people think it can only be done in this way and no alternatives... I agree its difficult to imagine an other way, but that's because we're just so used to how programs are currently structured, im thinking more about something where this shouldn't be something the average user has to deal with - even for the case they want to modify something - but the truth is computers are probably way too dumb to handle something like this on their own - which ultimately goes back to what a computer actually is,  a "Turing machine" that literally only understands 1s and 0s... there has been no innovation at all since, only miniaturization,  and "optimization" of code, but the tech is still the same, which just isn't very user friendly,  I still think there would be ways to make interactions with such a machine simpler and more intuitive. 

I hope this may improve with quantum computing,  but im not sure if they arent just slightly more sophisticated turing machines either.

 

1 hour ago, aramini said:

you have access to the source code, and at least have a shot at making it behave or do whatever you want. Unless you just want to wait until someone or some group within the community does it for you. In which case I wouldn't hold my breath

Thats what baffles me though,  no one ever tried successfully to make an alternative OS that's GUI / voice / touch based and simple to use and interact with?

I mean they did, but only for commercial purposes,  like CellOS, ANDROID... 

 

As for the source code thing, that's right, but I don't think Linux is salvageable from my POV, this proposed system would probably have to be UNIX based (from my rudimentary understanding)

 

 

34 minutes ago, Bramimond said:

What should they use instead? Folder structure seems like a very reasonable thing to me. Or rather, what problem do you have that cannot be solved while having a folder structure?

Thats yet another example of "why change when its been working for 70+ years..."

 

Also maybe I dont have an issue with folders per say (kinda makes sense for personal user files) but rather with the "structure"... even just finding things on a pc can be extremely cumbersome, let alone finding the right one if you have "duplicates" (don't get me started on that lol)

 

Maybe it makes sense due to the nature of how computers currently work,  but it shouldn't be something the end user should have to deal with.

 

I mod pretty much every game I play for example,  and even if the devs don't put any hurdles to that its still often extremely time consuming and cumbersome... having to hex edit 20 files, just because you want to change one little thing is just no fun or even something a human should have to do ever.

 

"Computer change this file so I can use it in another slot (slot 5) thank you" - Scotty

 

 

But no.... things must remain how they are forever, screw convenience and also then make it yourself if you don't like it! : P

 

 

 

[Bramimond]

17 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

I don't know, but this is a good example how people think it can only be done in this way and no alternatives... I agree its difficult to imagine an other way, but that's because we're just so used to how programs are currently structure

Why should we solve something that isn't a problem? Change for change's sake isn't productive.  

How about you first identify a problem and then propose a solution?

 

19 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Thats what baffles me though,  no one ever tried successfully to make an alternative OS that's GUI / voice / touch based and simple to use and interact with?

Android?

 

I guess the biggest problem is that the people capable of doing something like this have no motivation, since they wouldn't want to use it. 

Personally, I dislike GUI and stuff. The browser is the last remaining GUI application on my computer that I use on a daily basis. I do everything else through the CLI. 

 

..because it is just so much more convenient to use. 

 

It's easy to get frustated with computers being trapped in the default configuration of say Windows, but there are already better solutions out there. It's just that user friendly Linux distributions make themselves feel a lot like Windows, so looking at Linux it doesn't become obvious what you can do with it. If you use Linux with a Windows mindset, you won't gain much and might write it off.

 

Something like GUI, touch and voice based things seems to me like adding epicycles.

 

Quote

If you have a bad design (such as trying to work out the motion of planets on paper while constrained by dogma to pretend that the sun moves more than the earth), and if you then find you keep having to add more bad design to add features to that design, then you are "AddingEpicycles".

 

I think GUI was a design mistake. It doesn't make things easier. It just makes everything more complicated. 

People move towards CLI centric workflows not because they are nerds, but because it is a lot easier.

[LAwLz]

9 hours ago, aramini said:

So someone either knows everything there is to know about a particular thing, or they know nothing about it. Ok, I see where you are coming from, and it seems pretty arrogant to me.

That's not what I said.

What I said was that what someone considers "basic" knowledge might not be basic to someone else. Something might seem basic to someone else because they already know it, and it is easy to fall into the trap of "I know this and think it is easy, so everyone should think that".

 

 

9 hours ago, aramini said:

So your whole life, you always knew how everything worked on a very deep level, even as a child. You didn't start out with a basic idea and learn more as you progressed. Either you're a gifted genius or you aren't being honest and making  a lot of assumptions about someone you don't even know and don't know what they know or don't know.

I am not sure how you got that from my post... Stop making strawman arguments.

 

 

9 hours ago, aramini said:

My point is not to come off as some superior authority, but rather distinguish the difference and varying levels of knowledge amongst different people regarding any particular subject matter.

 

It's a matter of relative difficulty. If you know nothing about a subject, then everything regarding that subject is new and perhaps difficult at first. I wouldn't expect the average person who never encountered a subject to know anything about it.

 

But someone who is at college level hasn't learned it before? Then what are they teaching in grade school and high school these days?

Well, there are plenty of things that are not taught at lower levels of education, because why would they? Most people don't need to learn how a file system is structured, just like most people don't need to know how a switch functions, or a refrigerator works. They just need to know that it works, and how to operate it. It's the same with a file system. Most people don't need to know HOW files are saved and organized, they just need to know how to save a file. Likewise, most people don't need to know how a switch works, just that if they plug their computer into one you should get a network connection.

 

 

9 hours ago, aramini said:

You will have to write papers in college. Should you just now be learning grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, etc? One would hope that by the time one is college bound, they would know these things, or they are going to have a hell of a hard time the first few years in college.

What do you mean? They are teaching people grammar, vocabulary and the likes in earlier education. That's what they are being taught. They are not being taught how a computer structures files, nor how a switch learns and uses MAC addresses. Those are specifics that most people will never have a use for, and therefore it is skipped.

I can't tell if you are trying to make a strawman argument again or if you're just writing down some stream of consciousness without putting any thought of effort into how to express yourself.

 

 

9 hours ago, aramini said:

Maybe you or "we" learned it in 20 minutes. Maybe others took 2 hours, and others took 20hrs, and others took 2 weeks to grasp the ideas, and others still never got it and gave up and didn't pursue it further and now they don't work in the Tech field.

Yes, and? It's the same with the file system hieratical structure. I think it is okay to not know the basics of how everything you use on a daily basis works.

Not only do I think "basics of how something works" is extremely hard to define (even though you seem to think it is easy) but I also don't see the point why my grandma should know let's say how a switch works on a basic level. She doesn't need to know that. It is of no use for her. Likewise, a lot of people have no use for knowing how files are structured on their storage devices.

 

 

9 hours ago, aramini said:

Unless you already had a working knowledge of the things involved in how a switch worked (either from some other class or your own research) I call bs. Maybe learning how a switch works doesn't take that long but there are a lot of concepts that are related to a switch that if you didn't already know, it would take much much longer to learn how a switch works. Unless what you think of about how a switch works, is really only a very basic understanding on your part, in which case, again, I call bs. Unless it was how a switch works on a conceptual level and not how a layer 3 managed Cisco switch works, ios (nothing to do with apple) included.

lol, what are you on about? You sound really mad and I am not sure why. 

Yes, it only took about 20 minutes to get the basics of how a switch works. Keyword there being basics. Yes, there are a lot of concepts related to switches that are harder to learn but I'd not say those are "basic knowledge". We're talking "files can be stored in folders, and folders can be in folders" tiers of knowledge here.

Also, I get the feeling that you're trying to get some street cred by name dropping IOS and it's not really working.

 

9 hours ago, aramini said:

Are you wanting me to write a dissertation on how routers, switches, dns, route tables, mac tables, packets, protocols, the electricity that powers the switches and routers, etcetera, etcetera  work just to satisfy you on some personal level? (Kinda sounds like it)

No, I am not.

All I am saying is that there are probably lots of things you use daily that you do not understand the basics of how they work, and that's okay. Not everyone needs to understand how things work.

 

 

9 hours ago, aramini said:

I know how routers and switches and the Internet, and DNS, and TCP/IP and UDP, and Fibre Channel, and iSCSi work. I used to work for an Enterprise SAN vendor. The 'N' in SAN is for Network.

 

Congratulations on learning things in 20 minutes. I didn't know it was a contest. I was new to SAN, and a lot of the technology at the company I worked for was proprietary, so not taught in a college course back then, other than in a generalized way. It took me 6 months to learn and have a solid working knowledge of the specific implementation of the technology and the products of the company I worked for that I would have to support. This was not on an expert level either, that would take years. They had over 300 products and they weren't exactly liberal with their training  beyond the 4 weeks they gave us during the onboarding process.

 

A lot of the manuals and guides were proprietary and guarded as trade secrets (wouldn't find a copy on the Internet easily). You'd contractually have to have a Field Tech go onsite to assist the clients with issues. You could not give the manual or any part thereof to the customer. These systems were upwards of millions of dollars. So a lot of money was on the line if say a huge bank lost data due to our fault (it was in the contract between the client and the company). It was one of the most stressful jobs I have ever had.

Cool story bro. Do you want a gold star?

I really don't get what your point is.

 

I am not arguing for the sake of arguing. All I am saying is that drawing a line between what is "basic knowledge" and "knowledge of the nitty gritty" is not as clear cut as you think it is. It is certainly not "objective" as you said.

You think understanding the hieratical structure of a file system is basic knowledge. I think it leans more towards the "nitty gritty" while "a phone with 128GB can store more on itself than one with 256GB, and those files are stored locally on the phone" seems more like "basic knowledge" to me.

If you think file and folder structures are basic knowledge, why shouldn't a MAC address table be basic knowledge of how a switch works? Or what registers does in a CPU?

 

It seems like when it comes to switches and processors you think basic knowledge is "what something does", like "a switch connects computers" or "a processor does calculations". But when it comes to file systems, it is no longer enough to know what something does ("it stores files"), but now all of a sudden HOW it does it ("it stores it in this particular structure") is part of your definition of "basic knowledge".

[Sauron]

7 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

The programming tech we use today is incredibly old-fashioned , outdated and clumsy, and programmers seemingly completely unable to think out of the box, they think thats how things need to be done and there are no alternatives (especially prominent in the "Linux community" strangely enough)

I'm not sure why you're conflating "programmers" and "the Linux community"... while there is some overlap, they're not one and the same.

 

I'm also not sure of what you mean with "programming tech is outdated". In what way do you feel it's outdated as a whole? Programming is such a broad field, it's really hard to generalize anything about it.

5 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

I hope this may improve with quantum computing,  but im not sure if they arent just slightly more sophisticated turing machines either.

Quantum computing has nothing to do with UI or filesystem structure, and there's nothing inherent to Turing machines that makes them not user friendly... we don't lack the computing power nor the technology to make any type of interface you might want. The problem is thinking of changes that are actual improvements. Not to mention computers come in all forms and sizes and serve a huge range of use cases - there isn't one perfect user interface design for all of them.

5 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Thats what baffles me though,  no one ever tried successfully to make an alternative OS that's GUI / voice / touch based and simple to use and interact with?

Define "simple to use and interact with". There's a whole graveyard of UI that tried to bring touch or voice controls to the desktop and failed miserably. Why? Because in 99% of cases mouse and keyboard are significantly more efficient.

 

Touch controls are mainly used in cases where you don't have peripherals available, e.g. phones. Voice controls, at least in my experience, are almost exclusively used as a last resort when you can't use your hands.

5 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Also maybe I dont have an issue with folders per say (kinda makes sense for personal user files) but rather with the "structure"... even just finding things on a pc can be extremely cumbersome, let alone finding the right one if you have "duplicates" (don't get me started on that lol)

I think you're very confused about what a file structure is. Your operating system needs to be able to locate files with no ambiguity. If you have half a dozen files with the same name just lying around on the drive then you can't tell them apart and you can't know which one the user wants. While the Windows search function is terrible, its awfulness doesn't depend on the system using directories.

 

As for duplicates, how do you propose we tell files with the same name apart? Should the computer read your mind and know which "cat.jpg" you want when you type "cat" in the search bar?

 

Phones get around this by basically assigning each app its own folder on the phone's storage but make no mistake, underneath there's still a folder structure.

6 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

I mod pretty much every game I play for example,  and even if the devs don't put any hurdles to that its still often extremely time consuming and cumbersome... having to hex edit 20 files, just because you want to change one little thing is just no fun or even something a human should have to do ever.

Let me get this straight - you're complaining because the developers of a massive program didn't give you a GUI tool to automatically edit their program's machine code? You're modding a game, you're doing something the developers did not think of - how do you think they could make a tool that magically does everything you might want to change? I could understand wanting the source code (you can blame copyright there) but demanding any more than that is lunacy. What you're asking for isn't computer science, it's magic.

9 hours ago, aramini said:

The books also didn't cover how to use an alarm clock, how to shower or get dressed or tie a shoe or pack a backpack with books (most students, myself included, did not have a laptop back then in the early to late 90s) or how to eat breakfast, all in preparation for attending class, but not related to the content of the class either.

That's the point though, isn't it? They don't tell you how to do those things because they assume everyone knows them already. If that turns out to not be the case, maybe the course needs updating - and believe it or not, basic computer usage nowadays does not strictly require an understanding of what files and folders are.

[aramini]

 

8 hours ago, Bramimond said:

So you'd buy a computer for at least a few hundred dollars that you have no use for just to prepare yourself for a class that may or may not be related to the stuff you can do with your own computer?

Also, if you figured everything out by yourself, why even bother with college. You can just go to a library and have everything you need to learn everything. 

I've always had a computer in my adult life, since around 22 when I built my own first computer. For me, I was interested in computers, IT, tech, so it was an investment in my own future. Many people were saying computers were the future. So I took the time to build one and learn Windows 95 (my parents had an Apple II + and Apple II e when I was growing up and later a 386 and then 486 clone that ran Windows 3.1. But I mostly played games and we didn't have Internet).

 

You never actually stated what kind of class this was, if this is an actual class you took, or if your example is just anecdotal and you are making up an example to make your point.

 

As far as hanging out at the library, no. By then I had dial-up and just surfed the web for information. So yeah that's basically what I did, learned on my own.

 

I took a few college classes, but never finished college, as I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do and was paying for college on my own. So I stopped going to stop wasting money until I "figured out" what I wanted to do. Had a full time job and got distracted with that for a while. Eventually at 27  started my own business and never looked back.

 

Mostly everything I know (and I am not arrogant as to say that I know everything about everything), I learned on my own. I was about 24 when broadband Internet hit the mass market. I probably invested more time learning on my own than I would have by going to college.

 

Down side is, no degree, which can hold one back as far as job prospects. But ever since I became self-employed, that hasn't been much of an issue for me. And I've learned some valuable skills during the course of running a business that you would not necessarily learn in college.

 

[ouroesa]

On 9/24/2021 at 3:19 PM, LAwLz said:

Called it. The thread devolved into "wow, I can't believe someone else doesn't know this thing I know. They are so dumb". 

 

I wonder how many of you people are Windows kiddies that doesn't know much about computers in general. Doesn't know programming, doesn't know how a scheduler works, doesn't know how a processor works (and no "it calculates stuff and MHz measures how fast" is not knowing how it works) doesn't know even basic *nix commands. 

 

Hell, most of you probably don't even know how routing and switching works. You post on this forum yet you don't understand how your computer sends information over the internet? Cringe!

 

 

Do you know programming, so that you know how your computers work?

Do you know routing and switching, so you know how your routers and switches work?

Do you know how compressors work, so you know how your fridge works?

Do you know about the chemical concepts happening when cooking and eating food? How yeast works, how the maillard reaction happens, how the body converts the things we eat into the things we need to survive?

Do you know cars work? I don't mean "they burn fuel to move forward" but the intricate details about things such as how power steering functions (not just "it makes it easier to turn the wheel" but how it achieves that effect)?

 

 

The fact of the matter is that most things we come into contact are very complicated. You really do need to be very well researched into even tiny things to understand how they work. A lot of people don't realize how complicated even things that seem trivial actually are.

 

I really like the analogy that knowledge is like a balloon. The more air you put into the balloon, the more you inflate it, the more "unknown knowledge" (air outside the balloon) you come into contact with. Basically, the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know everything.

 

The people who think they know everything are those that have very little air in their balloons to begin with. There is a phenomenon about this called the Dunning–Kruger effect.

Do you know programming, so that you know how your computers work?

Yes, I used to be a backend developer (C#, sql, html mostly) but only for a couple of years though. But still use VB with Excel quite a bit and dabble with game mods/scripts here and there. I can also send you proof of my studies for this.

 

Do you know routing and switching, so you know how your routers and switches work?

Kinda, I am/was a certified microsoft systems engineer (MCSE) - I can send you my certificates.

 

Do you know how compressors work, so you know how your fridge works?

I do, fairly simple this one - It compresses things, as the name would suggest. Gas compressed, turned into liquid, moved, heat released when expanding and changing state to gas, move and repeat.

 

Do you know about the chemical concepts happening when cooking and eating food? How yeast works, how the maillard reaction happens, how the body converts the things we eat into the things we need to survive?

Many questions here, I grasp the concept of most of this, still learning. I know how yeast work as I do brew my own beer have once made wine too. 

 

Do you know cars work? I don't mean "they burn fuel to move forward" but the intricate details about things such as how power steering functions (not just "it makes it easier to turn the wheel" but how it achieves that effect)?

Yes, my first car I got, I had to rebuild the engine due to worn rings. I still do my own maintenance and repairs. A car's systems are really easy to understand (not every single thing but the concepts, what each systems does and how they function). For instance - I know what a MAF sensor does, where it is, how it works in general, that you get mainly 3 different types and what data is supplies the ECU and what the ECU does with said info and how a car will perform without it. The simple stuff. I don't need to know what materials it is made of and be able to draw a diagram if the electronics in it, which won't be too difficult as is mechanically/electrically a fairly simple device. Cleaned my MAF and throttle body when I serviced my car last month - just recall this now.

 

I thought I made it clear that I like to know how things work I use everyday? 

In order to know how something functions, the 80/20 rule can be really helpful - you don't need to know every minute detail of everything. GRasping larger concepts can be extremely helpful and it gives you the tools to figure out the rest - most of the time.

 

The Dunning–Kruger effect relates more to a specific topic of knowledge, not general knowledge.

 

Your incorrect assumptions of others (who you don't know from Adam)  and title as 'Pseudo-intellectual ' really says it all.

[Spotty]

Thread cleaned. If you're at the point in a debate where you're only arguing that the other person is a troll, is gaslighting, and making strawman arguments then any potential for constructive debate has passed. This really isn't that divisive of an issue either. You're really at the point of just debating semantics and arguing for the sake of arguing. Just move on.

 

• Encourage the freedom of expression and exchange of information in a mature and responsible manner.
• No harassment, discrimination, or abuse of any kind.
  • This includes insults and accusations (fanboy, troll, shill etc).

[adarw]

me who just has everything in one folder cause im lazy and couldnt care less.

 

nice. 

[LAwLz]

5 hours ago, ouroesa said:

-snip-

 

I thought I made it clear that I like to know how things work I use everyday? 

In order to know how something functions, the 80/20 rule can be really helpful - you don't need to know every minute detail of everything. GRasping larger concepts can be extremely helpful and it gives you the tools to figure out the rest - most of the time.

 

The Dunning–Kruger effect relates more to a specific topic of knowledge, not general knowledge.

 

Your incorrect assumptions of others (who you don't know from Adam)  and title as 'Pseudo-intellectual ' really says it all.

I was just throwing out some examples of everyday things most people don't know and have no interest in knowing. It's good that you know these things, but there are most likely hundreds of things you use on an everyday basis that you do not understand the basic concepts of.

That's kind of the thing with knowledge. You generally don't know what you don't know, and even mundane things tend to be significantly more complex than what we think.

[Bramimond]

10 hours ago, aramini said:

You never actually stated what kind of class this was, if this is an actual class you took, or if your example is just anecdotal and you are making up an example to make your point.

Have you read the first post? We are talking about psychology and physics students. 

 

Quote

That’s approximately when Lincoln Colling, a lecturer in the psychology department at the University of Sussex, told a class full of research students to pull a file out of a specific directory and was met with blank stares. It was the same semester that Nicolás Guarín-Zapata, an applied physicist and lecturer at Colombia’s Universidad EAFIT, noticed that students in his classes were having trouble finding their documents. It’s the same year that posts began to pop up on STEM-educator forums asking for help explaining the concept of a file.

 

[Laborant]

18 minutes ago, comander said:

Surprised this is an issue for the younger generation. 

If someone never went to a LAN party and had to set up an Ethernet network, and OneDrive and iCloud working out of the box, that person would never see behind the curtain. Apps can be installed from the store, no one really cares about the file system on the smartphone. 

Depending on your social circle, you technically could get the feeling of being "tEh uBeR nErD!" only because you know what an HDMI connector is. And then... this person has the feeling of being fit for a degree in IT. Or physics as these news tell. 

The iPhone (1) is 14 years old - then add 4 years of "lost childhood memories" and we are stuck with 18 year olds not knowing how the world looked like without smartphones. Feeling old now? iPads are nowadays used in the classroom. On these devices, everything file-system based is basically hidden from the user.

[Hassan170]

On 9/24/2021 at 12:57 AM, Brooksie359 said:

I remember taking computer classes when I was in middle school and grade school so I wonder if they still do that for this generation? I mean it seems like it would be even more important to learn about computers now then it was back when I was growing up as our reliance on technology is only becoming more necessary. 

My mum actually signed me up for this computer "tuition" as a kid, there was just me an a few others, i think was 5 or something back then. We learned how to do simple stuff like making a new folder on the desktop and changing the icon of said folder. That's all i remember. they gave us handouts with more info on basic computer stuff as well. it also helped that my family had a computer early on. so for me i got a headstart with the tuition and the rest i sort of figured it out myself. even now im still learning how to involve keyboard shortcuts like Alt+Tab and so on into my workflow. Maybe learn a few cmd prompts like finding out wifi passwords and such.

 

But i know many friends and family who never grew up with a desktop. My aunts children grew up with smartphones their whole life and now the eldest (who is also 5) now has to use a windows device to attend classes and since hes never used one, his mom has to navigate for him. So yeah to hear that the younger generations are not familiar with what we would consider basic systems is not surprising. it is time doing what it does best, making us adapt to the new normals.

[Hassan170]

On 9/23/2021 at 10:40 PM, CerealExperimentsLain said:

I've seen Zoomers who are social media savvy and they have a list of pirate streaming sites for TV and movies a mile long, you ask them about *torrenting* or anything where they'd have to manage files, it's like you just asked them to build a space ship.

now hold on just a hot darn minute, ill have you know that while torrenting is far superior.....those websites are just so more convenient.

[Hassan170]

On 9/24/2021 at 8:59 AM, ZacoAttaco said:

This was the surprising thing for me when reading this article. Whilst I was using a PC well before we had our first IT classes in primary school, those classes still taught me a lot of the fundamental computing principles at a young age and skills that would serve me well into the future.

 

Is it too outlandish for modern classes to teach junior students some of the basics of how to use a computer? I think the pros outweigh the cons here.

at my school in the 7th and 8th grade we had some it classes where our teacher taught us the concepts of email and how its basically your "digital passport".

i actually still use the email i made then to this very day. but only recently i heard computer classes are now moving downwards to teach kids at a younger age as well. which is good to know.

_{i should probably switch to more a secure email but im too lazy.}

[aramini]

On 9/27/2021 at 1:50 AM, Bramimond said:

Have you read the first post? We are talking about psychology and physics students

Yeah the article and the first post. But during the course of our discussion, you made it seem as though you were speaking about some specific experience that you had in the past with some class. So I was trying to clarify that to better understand you.

[DuckDodgers]

The case of hierarchical nature of the file/folder structure is analogous to the segmented memory address space or stacked registers -- no system programmer is arguing that the latter is superior to the flat memory addressing. I mean, that was the whole point of the evolution of the x86 for example -- from the 32-bit protected mode to the 64-bit extensions that all expanded and "flattened" the memory address space, so we don't need to resort to complicated segmentation and translation hacks. Heck even the age old NTFS was supposed to be supplanted by a DB-like meta-data driven WinFS years ago. IBM is even taking the similar approach to their mainframe CPUs with flattened meta-driven caching structure, enabling much more efficiency.