| futurology |
Chris Reynolds' article in December on the possible dangers of microcomputing provoked a good deal of response. J R Bird argues that the conclusions are incorrect
COMPUTING is much more than programming. It is concerned with the flexible use and application of ideas. The ideas are structured logically by means of a language.
That is one of the reasons why many of the conclusions of Chris Reynolds in his article in the December Sinclair User - Code Junkies Hooked on Micros - are incorrect. Although much of what he said was valid, the tone was prejudiced and negative.
All the problems of vocational computer training were blamed on owners of the home computer. The only slight comment in favour of the powerful little machines appeared in the last paragraph but even then they were dismissed as little more than games machines.
To condemn home microcomputer owners as potential code junkies - people with an addictive perverse interest in computers - probably as failures in academic life and as unemployable is a form of professional arrogance. Most people who have an interest in computing also have other interests.
It is the same arrogance which leads many people to claim exclusive rights to comment on particular branches of knowledge, especially how those branches will develop in the future.
There are likely to be many problems associated with the future in areas such as jobs or careers, leisure and education. None of those can be answered by any one group, be they teachers, employers, lecturers or workers, claiming they have the exclusive right to comment and decision-making.
Neither should Reynolds be advocating novice students in computing. That kind of logic is rather like a professor of French insisting on novice speakers - those who do not speak yet - if he is going to produce good speakers of French.
A teacher of a foreign language must take account not only the students' own language but also their development within that language.
If a student has had experience of a computer language it is reasonable to expect lecturers to take it into account. If specific languages cause problems, the lecturer must identify the problem and work out ways of overcoming them. A lecturer should not advocate novice students; it is no solution.
| 'To condemn micro owners as failures in academic life and as unemployable is a form of professional arrogance' |
There is a clear and unfortunate rift between academics and non-academics, professionals and amateurs. Academics tend to be more concerned with protecting their access to knowledge rather than sharing it. Professionals seem to be more concerned with keeping their right to knowledge rather than sharing it with amateurs.
Computing at a high level is for a small number of highly-qualified students and to suggest that the needs of those few are best-served by denying the vast majority of home micro owners use of their leisure time activities is wrong. Academics appear to see things in one of two ways. Either they are shut in ivory towers researching and learning for pure knowledge, or are selling their ability to industry.
While I would not subscribe wholly to that view, I wish the apparent rift which contributes to it did not exist.
With the introduction of new technology, people will find vast changes in their life-style; work may never be the same again. The concept of five to 16 education being sufficient may disappear; re-training several times may become the norm. Leisure may become more widespread - leisure which will demand the use of new technology. If many of the problems of the future are to be solved, the rift between the academic and non-academic computer user has to be bridged for the benefit of both the average microcomputer owner and the academic professional. Most people with home microcomputers would not suggest that their work with the computer would change the world but they would not suggest that those with computer PQX were inferior to them or that all mainframe work was necessarily superior.
The assumption common to many vocation-minded computer studies/computer science lecturers, that their work was important simply because they train professional workers, is to misread the future. Before long, the day of the large 'brain' will be over and the day of the small, powerful computer will begin.
It is also clear that plain language or even interactive voice computers are on the way. When the man in the street can talk to a computer and ask it questions, the mystery of the languages probably will disappear. Before that day arrives, however, we have the problem of many computer languages, but it is surely not beyond the understanding of professionals in the computer field to structure courses to take that fact into account.
I notice that the Open University is to use a further form of Basic in its course Computing and Computers. I am not condemning the intellectual level of the OU course but rather regretting the introduction of yet another dialect.
Even with the limitation of the new OUSBASIC, the Open University is showing the way to other universities and polytechnics. The course has been designed to introduce beginners to skills and techniques of computing. Most micro owners would concede that their programs and computing would be improved for a better knowledge of structure and logic, not to mention better techniques.
| 'The positive effect of academics getting together with people from all walks of life would broaden the outlook of teaching staff' |
So, in effect, what we have is a university or polytechnic department with the skills and resources to teach both the structure and techniques to improve the standard of home micro owners. Alongside that pool of skill we have a large number, perhaps some half-million at the moment, who would no doubt welcome some of that skill being taught to them.
What better way of bridging the academic, professional and non-academic amateur rift than bringing the two together?
That would create a new area of non-vocational studies for the institutes of higher education. As a spin-off, it would also retain in those institutions some of the teaching jobs which are disappearing under the present retrenchment in the higher education sector. Second, it could even earn money for the institutes involved. Mainly, the positive effect of academics getting together with people from all walks of life would inevitably broaden the outlook and experience of teaching staff.
Clearly there would be advantages for the students of such courses. They would learn better techniques, they would learn better ways of using computers, they would learn other computer languages, not to compete with the professionals, but to use in their private studies.
Further, those courses could be extended to include information and control technology and how it can be developed, designed, and used.
The interaction between micro owners and the professionals, both at the formal teaching and informal social levels, could only benefit both. Experience from both sides could stimulate more courses and lead to a leisure time education industry.