[Edu-sig] Another update from the field...

[kirby urner]

> Actually, no, you miss my point. That's completely tangential to what I was
> saying, and totally irrelevant. I wrote a long reply to this, but realised I
> can shorten it dramatically.

Heh.  As if yer point mattered. ;-D

> Knowing how something works so you can change it? Good (necessary even - up
> to the limit the person is capable of understanding (bell curves and all
> that)). Being forced to always use nuts and bolts because it "liberates you"
> from useful [1] tools that you can change [2] to suit your needs? Not so
> good. (Especially you merely want tools fit for purpose)

Aye, there's the rub.  What's the most fit tool for the job.  Enter
the wonderful world of self-fulfilling prophecies and other
tautologies.  Like *of course* you should use X, because X is the most
fit for what you need right now...

I don't think reST or Wiki rules are all that much easier than
learning the amount of XHTML it'd take to do pretty much the same
thing, plus you'll be encountering XMLs again and again, so the skills
are transferrable.

That doesn't mean you should always hand-code everything (I like
starting with templates, and a large library of already-done CSS
sheets).

Telling a startup to show up on radar inside a Wiki or Blog for its
web debut is crummy advice I think.

It's OK to link to those things (as does python.org) but your flagship
needs to feel like an outer frame (reskinning Plone does the trick,
but a plain vanilla Plone implies "I haven't put much of my own
creativity into this site" -- maybe not true, so why send that
message?

> Put another way:
>
> > don't market pure XML/XHTML as "the right solution for everybody" any more
> > than "computer programming for everybody" means we all program the same
> > way, or all have to use Python.

Interpolating into my text.  Madlib idea.

Right.  Some use Ruby on Rails.  Quite hostile to XML.  I like it.

> A much more fun way of making your main point (which I think boils down to
> being able to get under the hood when you want/need to and being able to
> easily change systems) is to merely point at the film "Robots".
>
> Makes the point in a much more fun way :)
>
> (especially if you notice some possible references to a particular hardware
> manufacturers, who could be said to successfully "infantalize" (to use
> your derogatory term) technology in a way that millions of people want,
> demonstrably so by buying said technology by their millions...)
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Michael.

The problem with infantalizating others is the people into it tend to
also steal candy from babies.

Kirby