[H-GEN] Vice President's report.

[Arjen Lentz]

Hi Rob, all

> On Sat, 23 Jul 2011, David Seikel wrote:
> > In the old days, when we were young, people doing computers did so
> > because they where passionate about computers. These days it's
> > because it's a well paying job. Any well trained suit can do it.
> 
> The thing is there are always passionate people and always people who
> do stuff to get paid. For whatever reason we're missing the passionate
> IT geeks.
> 
> Maybe uni IT courses really do draw in less of the passionate geeks
> than they used to. This seems quite plausible to me actually.
> 
> I think there is an interesting study in changing demographics buried
> in their somewhere.

I think there's a difference, a shift in use of computers over the last 3 decades. It's the difference between the goal and the tool. When we got in to stuffing around with computers, we were exploring them for their own sake as their real-world applications were limited (you can argue this, but compare with now).

Now, I reckon it's very important for people to have an understanding of how computers work as they're all around us and use them daily. But it's equally important to recognise that for most people they're tools, not goals in themselves. They want to do something and a computer can help them with it, it's not purely for the sake of exploring computers - that's a niche hobby just like there are many others.

If you send a letter you use a stamp, but only few people are stamp collectors.
(hehe I know that's an awfully painful analogy, but perhaps it makes the point clearer ;-)

Let's try another one: many people cycle, but few build or re-build their own bicycle. Quite a few will know enough to fix problems though and have sufficient understanding of how their gear works, as that's important when you're cycling and something happens... you need to help yourself. Useful skill.

Cheers,
Arjen.