peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (10/11/83)
If I had the money, I think I'd go away and live in the Arctic for a year or two. With any luck, by the time I'd get back, Reagan would be gone and the "computers-are-here-so-let's-all-learn-BASIC-to-get-ahead" fad would be over. Not that learning things is bad, or even learning BASIC, it's just that it is such a *FAD* right now. And I think it's raising a lot of false hopes; programming large systems is still difficult using the best of languages (let alone BASIC!) but no-one's saying that! p. rowley, U. Toronto.
benw@pyuxn.UUCP (10/12/83)
Amen! Home computers are taking on all the trappings of a fad.
According to the advertisements, you simply cannot be without
a computer. It is the new status symbol of the 80's.
The fact is that most people simply do not NEED a home computer.
You can do neat things with one, of course, but just about
nobody actually NEEDS one. Balance a checkbook? I have a
calculator for that. Store recipes? Try recipe cards (much easier
than setting up a computer in the kitchen). A computer is seldom
a better way of doing things around the house.
What I find extremely objectionable is how the home computer ads
play on parent's guilt. The ads imply, none too subtly, that children
who don't have computers are doomed to failure in school and life (my
favorite is the one in which the poor dejected college freshman comes
home on the train, in the rain, of course, after obviously
flunking out because his parents wouldn't buy him a Commodore).
I have a friend who has learned to program a TRS80 in basic, and
now assumes she can get a job earning ~100,000 (no exageration)
as a programmer. This would be funny except that she left her
current job in pursuit of this (she's now operating a phototypsetting
machine). She apparently thought that micros with basic were
all that the computer field consisted of. Apparently knowing
that did not assure success in life.
From the land of broken dreams (Piscataway)
Ben Weber pyuxn!benw