* Anders Johansson; <andjoh@rydsbo.net> on 02 Jun, 2003 wrote:
from or to programs.
No it isn't. It is completely useless knowledge for, say, the company secretary. In fact, it is worse than useless, since it's just distracting from his/her real work.
There are users for whom that type of knowledge would be useful. And then there are most users, for whom it is not.
Correct, when conducting any training there are two types of information a) Need to know b) Nice to know Need to know information is essential to get the job done while nice to know is just for the interested person. Especially in an entry level training the educator must carefully select the need to know information to be presented to the participants. This will make sure that success is guaranteed and speed of learning is fast. Everybody wants to be successful when they take a class and making sure they are achieving their goal should be the major concern of the program designer.
Knowing a thing or two about the /ever present/ standard text processor tools is useful too, if only to give them a feel for the power of these tools for future uses.
For most regular users there are not now, nor will there ever be a time when sed, awk of vi is useful. This is why companies have admins.
It is extremely detrimental to the "linux on the desktop" movement to include this type of material in "luser" classes. It scares people away.
Well said unfortunately not many people realize this -- Togan Muftuoglu Unofficial SuSE FAQ Maintainer http://dinamizm.ath.cx