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Path: utzoo!watmath!watdcsu!herbie
From: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong, Computing Services)
Newsgroups: net.college,net.flame
Subject: Re: Does someone REALLY belive this?
Message-ID: <624@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 8-Nov-84 10:29:06 EST
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.624
Posted: Thu Nov  8 10:29:06 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Nov-84 07:15:35 EST
References: <1668@ucf-cs.UUCP>, <605@whuxlm.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 30

If shoelaces become obsolete, it matters little that your child can tie
shoelaces or not.  It depends on your view of the future.  Of course,
shoelaces are just one example of this.  On the other hand, losing
arithmetic skills because of the high use of calculators is a more
serious thing.  I know that even I use them for my, mostly trivial,
calculations and other things.  The introduction of calculators and
computers has allowed people to have a deeper understanding of the
mathematical structure of a problem by hiding the details, such as
arithmetic.  The covering up the details has a price--it allows one to
forget the details altogether so often that one loses those skills.
Back in the days of ancient history (when computers were still
programmed from a console :-)), one had to know all about the hardware
registers, instruction op-codes, and instruction sizes to write a
program.  Now we let compilers do the work.  Even assemblers are a
step above.  All the hardware knowledge was essential at one time to be
a programmer, but only a few people these days require it.  Is
arithmetic destined to become such a skill, practiced by the few in
number theory?  Should arithmetic become a graduate course to be
practised by scholars?

Herb Chong...

PS.  Incidentally, I own an HP-15C, and HP-67, and a TI LCD Programmer.

I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble....

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