History means "Before self" LONG (was RE: legality of web links t o articles?

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com [mailto:Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com]
replied to a youngster who had said:
 
> >The WEB was conceived primarily for commerce;
 
> Ooops. That one's so far wrong it hurts. The web was 
> conceived as a way for
> Physicists and other scientists to share information 
> electronically. Just
> ask Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who created it while working at 
> a Eurpoean
> high-energy physiscs lab. The business folks, as is their 
> wont, only hopped
> on the bandwagon after it started drawing a crowd.

Oy! These kids are makin' me feel old. 

But, this is something we might keep in mind as we discuss 
this'n'that on this list. The people you are addressing 
rarely have the same background that you do. When you and 
I talk about the web, we see it as something that arose only 
in the most recent quarter (fifth?) of our lives.

When the young'ns talk about it, they're talking about 
something that was largely in place, as part of the 
general background of existence when they were toddlers 
or schoolkids.  Certainly, for all of their working lives 
and probably most/all of their "serious" student lives 
(i.e., when they had to do actual research), the web 
was the acknowledged first -- and often last -- resource.

For many, what's not on the web never existed. With the 
exception of specific history sites and encyclopedias, 
web content goes back a dozen years or so. Before that, 
is pre-history... something you can speculate about (if 
you're bored), or that old-timers jaw about, but that 
didn't actually... like... happen, y'know?

When we old farts skim a mess of topical links and 
articles, we have the perspective of having actually 
BEEN there for many of the events or their antecedents, 
so we automatically weight or discount what we read. 
We also tend to put more trust in content that's 
published on paper -- partly because it's what we 
grew up with, and partly because we feel that anybody 
who goes to the expense of publishing a physical book 
or magazine is likely to take some precautions against 
libel suits and such.

For somebody new, any given article on the web is likely 
to carry as much weight as any other on a topic, and 
the newer folk seem less likely (in my experience) to 
either HAVE printed texts lying around, or to go get 
same in a (gasp!) library. ("...For Dummies" books, 
and "Learn C++, Python, Java and XML in 14 Minutes" 
texts nothwithstanding...)

I'm not sure how much those varying viewpoints can 
affect the reception/use of technical material, but 
they surely can and do affect how argument and 
persuasive material are received.

But here's an example of how history can affect 
daily life:

It has been observed that a service provided by 
a cable company is often less reliable than an 
equivalent service provided by an older phone 
company.  Why might that be?

Well, when the phone company was The Phone Company, 
they may have been arrogant (as holders of an 
enforced monopoly), but they also had "a sacred 
trust". They developed standards of technical and 
engineering procedure that generally meant minimizing 
downtime. That meant they were careful about adding 
new stuff, but they maintained the existing stuff to 
a high standard, and they could (and usually did) 
respond to breakdowns with focussed effort by well-
trained, well-equipped personnel.

The cable company was a relative upstart, and their 
much shorter tradition was as a purveyor of mere 
entertainment.  They may have had a monopoly from 
the government (yes, youngsters, they did, for 
decades... :-), but most of the regulatory requirements 
were in regard to content. By contrast, the government 
required the phone companies to be very available and 
reliable, but had nothing to say about content.

So, the cable companies developed a model of service 
that was literally based on push-pins in a map. 

You contacted the phone company, reporting a problem 
with your phone line, and within hours (or days, at worst) 
they sent technicians to exactly the right place to make 
your phone service work again.

You contacted the cable company, reporting a problem 
with cable reception, and -- after mollifying you with 
promises that they were addressing your problem and 
would have it fixed shortly -- they'd stick a pin 
in a map, and go back to reading the sports pages.
After a bunch of your neighbors called in with similar 
complaints, the number of pins in that area would 
suggest a statistical probability that the problem 
was within a certain area. They'd send somebody out 
with the truck to look at the lines and at the 
neighborhood connection boxes. Likely, they'd find 
the cause of your problem and fix it, months after 
your complaint.

The phone company had a history of quick, precise 
response, largely because their network was set up 
that way. They knew where every line and every 
circuit lived, and could trace and test each one.

The cable company had a history of ... er... casual 
and imprecise response, because any given customer 
was just a pin in a map. Their network allowed 
far less-specific location of problems (for one 
thing, it was one-way-only for many years), so 
feedback was hard to get.

When the phone and cable companies began to offer 
cellular phone service, they each brought their 
existing strengths and philosophies to the new 
service. Cable folk were good at marketing, and 
phone folk had all those engineers and techs and 
procedures.

When the phone and cable companies began to offer 
high-speed internet access, .... blah, blah, blah. 
That's why you can usually get a prompt fix for 
an ADSL connection, whereas you tend to live with 
marginal cable-modem service before the company 
gets around to fixing it. As well, if you have 
a cruddy cable-modem connection, your neighbors 
are likely to have similar, while on ADSL you 
have your own private DSL circuit to the phone 
company.

Certainly, they're converging, and the differences 
are blurring, but if you know the history, you 
can still spot the trends and can understand the 
lingering differences. 

I think this suggests that when your audience 
can include a mix of ages, your instruction can 
profitably contain some explanation for both 
segments -- historical stuff, so the new kids 
understand why all this backward compatibility 
nonsense is included in the product, and perhaps 
some "obvious" 'what does this do' stuff for the 
old folks who need to pick up stuff that the 
younger crowd knows by immersion. ("It's kinda like 
Napster, man... waddya mean you never used Napster?
Where do you get your free MP3s? Oh, c'mon! 
**Everybody** swaps MP3s.")

:-)

/kevin

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Did you know you can get RoboHelp certified?
To learn how, visit http://www.ehelp.com/techwr. Be sure to also check out
our special pricing offers and promotions for RoboHelp 2002.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.