[geeks] Education [was: [rescue] Mainframe on eBay]

[wa2egp at att.net]

> There's also the point that an architect with a pencil and paper can
> whip out a half-dozen different ideas for his clients in 15-20 minutes
> vs. the tedious stuff required to do the same with a CAD program.
> Or that, CAD programs, as with all software can have bugs and be
> wrong.  A good drafter will catch these issues.
> 
Reminds me of a relative who used to work for a company that builds
processing plants.  He found the engineers drawing everything from
scratch.  He new nothing about CAD but convinced them that you could
save drawings of parts (like a gear) and add these when making another
drawing, savng a lot of time.  His final reward?  You guessed it...he
lost his job.  Great considering he was their boss.
  
> Yes.  And teaching principles also means teaching those necessary
> for developing the practices.  As an example of that, a good IT security
> curriculum would give a foundation in general host security (e.g. what
> things make a host secure) and while a lab might address these on a
> given OS, the focus of the curriculum would be the broad principles of
> host security, not "how to secure OS du jour 2025."
> 
> I am a Heinleinian after all: "Specialization is for insects."  By teaching
> tools you are teaching specialization; and specialization, in the worst
> case, can result in extinction.
> 
> =Nadine=

Nadine!  You make too much damn sense.  Now I have to go back to school
for at least three days to get to the level of mediocrity that I'm
expected to maintain. :)

Bob