Modern Electronics (was Re: List charter mods & headcount... ; -))

From: Vintage Computer Festival <vcf_at_siconic.com>
Date: Sun Jun 20 13:05:27 2004

On Sun, 20 Jun 2004, Teo Zenios wrote:

> Tools are great, I use them myself. But you have to have some knowledge of
> what's going on to know when the answer the tool gives you is wrong (maybe
> you didn't feed the tool enough information, forgot something, or there is a
> bug in the program, etc). Lots of solutions that look good on a computer end
> up not working great in the field because of many things that are not
> modeled in your tool. Bridges fall, roofs cave in, microchips short out, etc
> not because the tools were wrong, but because when things get too big or too
> small other forces that normally don't matter come into play. The only thing
> that really changes in engineering is we have new materials, controls, and
> better detailed models to play with, the basics you learned in school don't
> change much if at all. Without the basics the tools are just a good quick
> way to make a mess of things. Somebody who knows what's going on can jump
> from tool to tool, if you just know how to use one particular tool then your
> in trouble.

I think the question boils down: Are we losing any knowledge as each
generation passes?

My instinct would say "no", since the world is still working. People
still understand electronics, mechanics, physics, etc. People are still
being taught the fundamentals. One learns more in classrooms today than
they did 100 years ago. Much of the subject matter has changed, but the
basics remain the same.

For example, we no longer learn how tubes/valves work, because we don't
design with them anymore. However, the functional basics are the same as
with transistors. We don't learn in detail how tubes or transistors work
because we aren't going to be designing and building new ones. Now we
learn how FPGAs and the like work because that's what we design with. In
100 years, FPGAs will be quaint, just like vacuum tubes are today. But as
long as the basics are still being taught, the world will keep working.

> The most important things I learned in college is how to deal with people
> you might not like but have to work with, the basics of the field I was in

Exactly. But you don't need to go to school to learn this. A job as a
waiter in a restaurant will teach these skills quite nicely.

> (that you DO use believe it or not for the rest of your life), and how to
> solve problems you never seen before in a logical way.

That's what most people don't realize school is all about. It's not about
learning a subject matter, it's learning how to THINK properly (a skill
many people lack today, partially as evidenced by the mess the world is
currently in).

-- 
Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Sun Jun 20 2004 - 13:05:27 BST

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