On Thu, 13 Apr 2000 14:39:43 -0700, Nicole Zimmerman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:

>Personally, give me quake3 anyday over an RPG... and why shouldn't
>programming courses focus on mecahnics of information technology?
>*how* information moves and how to make it move is what computer
>science is, is it not? 

By "mechanics of information technology" I suspect they mean hardware.

>Programming is just the eloquent moving of information from one form
>to another... from something semi-useful to something useful.
>Whether it be mouse clicks for a game or numbers for a calculation,
>you're moving information... maybe I'm interpreting "mechanics of
>information technology" incorrectly? As far as the hardware goes, you
>*need* to know how the computer works physically to move that
>information... if you didn't know about the hardware of your machine,
>I doubt you could complete a CS degree.

I only understand hardware at a vague, theoretical level.  While it's
useful to understand what the hardware is doing, it is not necessary
to know what makes a PCI bus different from an a ISA bus to be able to
write application-level (or even system-level) programs, any more than 
it is necessary to understand quantum physics to design a circuit with 
semiconductors.

Kelly


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