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Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by ethbro on Sunday April 29, 2018 @01:05PM (#16952827)
Well said. I blame 2nd coming Jobs (iMac and iPod era) and same period Microsoft for a lot of this as they competed with each other.

Usability became more important than flexibility. And intuitive operation prioritized over ease of learning.

There's a lot to be said for a harder to use computer with a learning curve, but which affords you more power to be a creator instead of a consumer at the end of the curve.

I'd go so far as to say that's better for us (as in, all humans).

Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by staticassertion on Sunday April 29, 2018 @02:04PM (#16953115)
This is really silly to me.

Making computers accessible seems like a completely reasonable, sound priority. Yes, computer literacy is something we all need to work towards, but we'll never be in a world where the average person understands PKI, and saying that we should limit accessibility until they do is absurd.

Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by salawat on Sunday April 29, 2018 @09:26PM (#16955054)
Not what I'm suggesting. More what I am suggesting is that we REALLY need to get away from teaching software products, and start teaching how to use computers.

Example:

Teaching fundamental abstractions before basing education on one set or another.

Teaching fundamental program sets/basics of toolchains (Think scripts, text editors, and intro to program compilation.)

Teaching fundamental protocols.

Teaching about infrastructure.

Teaching how to do X in Windows/Mac/Linux.

IN THAT ORDER. Notice that that curriculum, while it would likely have to choose one OS or another based on circumstances, focuses on what you can DO with a computer, and lays a foundation through which the neophyte user can begin to understand what a computer and the NET really are.

The NET isn't a pretty screen. It isn't one company's search engine, it's the means by which info goes from HERE to THERE. A computer isn't some mere calculator. It is an extension of our minds (and should be civically treated as such, but that's another post).

I can die happy if within my lifetime, my occupation in the tech industry becomes "unskilled" labor. For I will have contributed to finding a way to elevate mankind to a me level.

Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by userbinator on Sunday April 29, 2018 @03:43PM (#16953560)
but we'll never be in a world where the average person understands PKI

2000 years ago: "we'll never be in a world where the average person can read and write English"

Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by staticassertion on Sunday April 29, 2018 @05:01PM (#16953896)
I think my point stands even with a loose definition of 'never'.
Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by chickenfries on Sunday April 29, 2018 @06:41PM (#16954318)
Yes, apparently all we need to do is wait 2000 years for people to understand PKI.
Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by yzmtf2008 on Sunday April 29, 2018 @05:59PM (#16954143)
Then let's re-evaluate the situation in 2000 years. Until then, PKI is still useful without the average person understands it. Just like how languages are useful without everyone understanding it.

I doubt this is even the point of GP.

Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by gregknicholson on Sunday April 29, 2018 @03:18PM (#16953457)
Yeah, understanding the internal combustion engine should not be a prerequisite for riding a bus.
Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by progval on Sunday April 29, 2018 @03:38PM (#16953539)
Most people have at least a vague idea of how a combustion engine works, don't they?
Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by gregknicholson on Sunday April 29, 2018 @03:51PM (#16953594)
Kids ride buses; I'm pretty sure they don't understand the marvels of engineering they're benefiting from.

My point is: it should be possible to use something without fully understanding the minutiae of how it works. We call this “user interface design”.

You should be allowed to live in a house without a full understanding of the architectural details that prevent it from falling down.

Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by posterboy on Sunday April 29, 2018 @07:37PM (#16954547)
I'm sure no single person understands every detail of the diesel engine, arguably nobody so far can solve the Navier-Strokes equation exactly. But even children understand that the car needs fuel and they might now that it has an engine that can break if given the wrong fuel. They could, at least. The fact that there are those who don't only corroborated the fact that there are folks who don't know how ... what was the actual problem? Will be owned by having their traffic captured.
Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by unexistance on Monday April 30, 2018 @01:56AM (#16956127)
Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by yzmtf2008 on Sunday April 29, 2018 @02:43PM (#16953279)
> Usability became more important than flexibility. And intuitive operation prioritized over ease of learning.

Why is this problematic? Why is more people having access to computing a bad thing? This is a dangerous, and (dare I say) elitist opinion. We're seeing positive impact, every day, thanks to the ubiquitously available computing resources.

If you'd like to use a computer with a learning curve, use a computer with a learning curve. Don't drag the whole world with you.

Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by daddosi on Sunday April 29, 2018 @06:03PM (#16954163)
The trade of is worth some thought. It takes a lot of effort to cater to intuition. If we put some of that effort into giving the user acces to the tools it should make a better result in the long run. The simple version of how a combustion engine works is inspiring and helps us aperciate the bus.

It might be a bit to deep an argument but where do you think intuition comes from? If we design peceaved reality after existing intuition you get a giant feedback loop that calls for ever more unrealistic representations.

Mabe an analogy can be had with electronics being mostly paralel processes while we can barely figure out how to implement it in higher languages. Our intuition likes the 1 thing at a time approach.

Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by yzmtf2008 on Sunday April 29, 2018 @06:24PM (#16954247)
I think the idea is that we should cater to intuition, and give everyone the necessary tools to understand and tweak it, but it's not necessary to do good. To the average people, appreciating the bus brings much less utility than being able to take the bus. Should we not have the bus just because people can't appreciate the combustion engine?

But then, of course, intuition is more useful for some people. For those people, no one is stopping you from digging into the engine itself. This is really the price discrimination idea applied to utility: offering a cheaper, easier to use interface (taking the bus) means now the bus is useful not only to the engineers, but the passengers as well.

The situation about computing is not really that much different. If you want to learn the internal of computers, Gentoo exists, feel free to use it. But should everyone use Gentoo? Not really. I'm probably more proficient in Linux than the average developer, but I don't see the need of using Gentoo myself either.

That is not to say we can't do better either. The signature design for SQLAlchemy is leaking abstractions (but in a good way). The average dashboard for a car today is way more complicated than the dashboard of a car 70 years ago. Yet, that's not stopping car ownership to grow. Maybe there's a lesson for us somewhere there as well.

Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by voltagex_ on Sunday April 29, 2018 @07:22PM (#16954485)
The problem is that with the popularity of tablets and phones, the desktop and laptop market is shrinking. I wonder how much of the recent hardware price increases you can really blame on cryptocurrencies vs it's becoming a niche to have root on your computer and is priced as such.
Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by userbinator on Sunday April 29, 2018 @01:29PM (#16952944)
More importantly, the ability to write and run your own code easily, of which learning is only part of the process. From that perspective, Apple was closed from almost the beginning, while the PC and various other micros of the time (ZX, C64, etc.) started out open.
Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by teh_klev on Sunday April 29, 2018 @02:39PM (#16953262)
The Apple ][ wasn't closed, you could hack away on it just as much as any other 8bit machine of the day. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) it was from the Mac onward life got a bit more challenging.
Re:Tell HN: Sci-Hub's TLS certificate has started failing by majjam on Sunday April 29, 2018 @02:23PM (#16953200)
I found the early macos’ (6,7,8 and 9) incredibly frustrating for this reason. Pc users has dos and qbasic, but other than hypercard, mac didnt seem to have a way into the internals to learn about coding. Stuck in userland.