Re: Future of RPG -- RPG400-L

> message: 1
> date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 12:07:53 -0800 (PST)
> from: "James H H Lampert" <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> subject: Re: Future of RPG
> 
> > I guess this explains how my american/english literature (aka major
> > bullshit artists) are able to keep their jobs...their classes are
> > required.....
> 
> If you really regard professors of literature (and writing, music, and
> art) as purveyors of bovine scat, then you are exactly like all the
> University kids who surround themselves with Fountains of Knowledge, then
> won't voluntarily take so much as a sip from one that isn't connected with
> their chosen career path. And those classes are required (and where I went
> to school, an extra semester of writing was required of all computer
> science majors, at least in my department) because it was the only way to
> get most of them to drink from those Fountains. (Or as Dorothy Parker once
> said, "You can lead a HORTICULTURE, but you can't make her think.")
> 
> Because if you really regard those professors as such, then you don't have
> the slightest clue what the difference is between training and education.
> (HINT: Training teaches you how to make a better living. Education teaches
> you how to live more fully.)
> 
> If that is so, then I pity you.
> 
> --
> JHHL

Thanks for saying that Jim, I was way too angry to post anything but all kinds
of nastiness.

I'd also like to point out that my dad has been teaching at the
college/university level for 30+ years.  He specializes in those "BS" courses
our friend just mentioned.  

Desipite the fact that he's taught literally hundreds of courses in English,
Speech, Humanities, Film, Composition, and Literature, he's managed to help his
students become teachers, doctors, lawyers, and... computer programmers.  

And over the years, a large number of former students have taken their precious
time to call and write or even visit him after graduation.  They've said thanks
for broadening my horizons, and helping them to establish something that a lot
of business and computer courses don't teach:  the critical faculty.

I've been in  this bidnez since... well, too long.  I was writing programs
professionally for my high school in the late 1970's.  Arguing about the next
generation stuff has made me think, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm
not terribly worried about where the next crop, flock, murder, group, pride (or
whatever collective noun you use to describe an aggregate) of RPG programmers
is going to come from.  

As stated previously, there's a pile of RPG code out there that has to be
maintained.  As long as businesses pay money for people's services to maintain,
construct, and design new RPG code, someone is bound to pop out of the
woodwork.  When the money dries up, so do the programmers.

Also, I don't really care what a person's background is.  I've worked with guys
who had no education past high school and guys who had Master's Degrees in
Speech Pathology.  Their programming skills certainly weren't in proportion to
their diplomas.