Many professional programmers have no idea how computers work, let > alone end users.
Yes, this is disturbing.
The real question is how much does a user need to know about the
> internal workings of _any_ machine? Years ago cars had choke controls
> and manual transmissions. They're mostly gone -- do users still need
> to know about them? As a motorist, do I need to know how fuel
> injection works? If the injectors get clogged, I have no idea how to
> safely clean them or even how to access them. Do I really need to > know?
Yes, you do, because things go wrong. And when things go wrong, if you don't know what is inside the box, you can't even make informed decisions about repair work done by other people.
I do think it is helpful for end users to know a little bit about
> what's under the hood. But sometimes a little knowledge is dangerous.
> How much do they need to know?
I think at the very least you should be forced to demonstrate you can change your own oil before you are given a driver's license. When people don't have basic understanding of what is under the hood, they are apt to consider technology as magic, and this is very, very bad.
--scott
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."