> With more specific regard to the topics on this list, I 
> think some of
> us have the impression that if we answer a few questions 
> before the
> person has read the whole datasheet that that person will 
> never learn
> to read a datasheet or figure things out for themselves. 
> I 1000%
> percent disagree with that.  There will be no shortage of 
> other
> stumbling blocks this person will face going forward, and 
> having a
> little bit of early success with the help of a few people 
> on this list
> or elsewhere will only encourage them to actually get to 
> the point
> where they can and will read a datasheet for themselves 
> and eventually
> actually start answering a few questions for other people.

My son started a computer science degree.
They started in Java at a conceptually very high level. He 
was writing web applications and servers and the whole 9 
yards. He had utterly no concept of registers and stacks and 
memory addressing and banking / paging/segmenting etc. I was 
stunned and appalled. I wondered how the world had ever come 
to such a sorry state.

THEN they started to drill down. Having them confidently 
producing programs that actually worked and did wondrous 
real world things they then started to show them the how and 
why. It happens that my son abandoned that degree, went and 
got another in theology, came back and converted the CS 
degree to one majoring in psychology :-). BUT his best 
friend who started with him is now a real IT man and can 
fall slowly when jumping off tall buildings so his opponents 
fire in the wrong place and he zaps them as he drifts down 
and you CAN'T DO THAT in Doom and how can you hack an 
international multi user system like that (he didn't, just a 
wee time slot stealer in the pipe) and people ask him how he 
does it. And my son occasionally does web development work 
even though using his psych degree in his real job.

So you never know where the stumbling beginner will end up. 
But, coddle them too much and they may ALL become psych 
students ;-)


        R

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