----- Original Message ----- From: "Olin Lathrop" To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 1:16 PM Subject: Re: [OT] Google is an oracle (was PCB term) > Alan B Pearce wrote: >>> Trouble is with all this stuff, at what point will we stop thinking >>> for ourselves entirely, if everything is done for us? :) >> >> I know what you mean, we had a secondary school student come to us >> for a week work experience a few months ago. Set him any problem, and >> his first instinctive reaction was to search Google. > > Geesh, doesn't he know he should trudge down to his local library, dig > thru > little paper index cards in hundreds of little drawers, find the > referenced > book in the stacks, flip thru it, discover it's not really what he needs, > back to the index cards... Of course most of us would not want to go back to that kind of scenario, why expend unnecessary effort when there is a good tool like Google available. All I was saying is the more software/machines do for us, the more *some* people seem to think that learning the theory behind their trade etc isn't necessary, as they may not see the point if a machine can do it for them (e.g circuit theory -> spice etc) Of course there have always been incompetent/lazy people, but I'm wondering if the general attitude nowadays is leaning more towards "if there is a tool that can do it for you, you don't need to know how any of it works" (How many people cannot perform basic maths nowadays, or spell correctly? Is it down to calculators, spell checkers etc? It always amazes me that even WITH spell checkers, I still see mistakes/grammatical errors in publications all the time). I suppose the underlying point is that these are all (incredibly useful) tools, but none of them entirely eliminate the need for the human to understand things. I'm sure this argument has been raging for as long as people have been inventing things, but it still interests me. -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist