Re: [Nolug] One Weekend Messing With Perl

On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 07:33:59PM -0500, Mark A. Hershberger wrote:
> Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net> writes:
>
> > The point of school (as I see it as a middle-aged white guy who's
> > never used Trig since University and only uses the most rudimentary
> > Algebra, and has kids in grammar school) is to expand your brain,
> > stretch your mind, and build a foundation of knowledge and capacity
> > for the future.
>
> As the father of four children (pre-school to middle school aged), I
> agree that this is indeed the (much of the) point of school.
>
> Still, the cynic in me sees that another thing school does is teaches
> children to perform meaningless exercises on command. Which fits nicely
> into a factory environment or large company where an individual is
> expected to perform any given task, even if it seems to be meaningless.
>
> One could also say that the ???point??? of an education is to show that one
> is teachable. Many employers don't care what degree a prospect has, as
> long as he has one. The degree shows he has the capacity to learn,
> adapt and persevere towards a goal.
>
> Many employers, though, would be just as happy hiring someone who has a
> proven work history or can point to a string of successful projects that
> are relevant to the job. Even if they haven't finished high school.
>
> Perhaps I'm just seeing in the XKCD cartoon what I want to see, but my
> experience with elementary through high school was that it did not
> stretch my mind. It was dull and boring. Those weekend and summer
> programming projects were a challenge and a chance to explore ???
> something that the schools I attended didn't offer much of ??? projects
> that were much more valuable for my future than the busy work that fills
> much of the day in the average school.
>
> (And, no, life doesn't just revolve around work and school sometimes
> introduces children to things they might not be exposed to otherwise.)

It is a comment on how useful Perl is. I wouldn't read into it any
further.

Brett

>
> Mark.
>
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B. Estrade
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