The End of the Power
User and of Professional Advice?
Eric Johnson
As most
tennis players probably have noticed, wind on the tennis court is a great leveler of athletes of differing abilities. In calm
weather, good tennis players know pretty well how to place their shots; poor
players often have little idea where their shots will land. On gusty, windy
days, good players can no longer be sure where their shots will hit, and, of
course, poor players still do not know where theirs will land. Thus, on a windy
day, a poor tennis player and a good tennis player may be about equal -- the
level of play of both will be low.
Due to the increased winds
of change in computing, the abilities of the novice user and of the power user
are similarly leveled -- downward. As the winds of
change in computing increase, grasping an overview of the whole domain of
computation is impossible, thus predictions are unreliable, and expectations
are uncertain. It is difficult to understand fully even the applications that
are used daily. Except, perhaps, for a computer professional (more about which
following), the power user is about on a level with the novice -- a low level.
Examples of the rapid
increase of the winds of change can be found in almost every facet of
computing. When PCs became popular, there was only one PC microprocessor: the
8086. (For the sake of simplicity, the Macintosh and work-station lines of
development are ignored in the following.) Then, in an orderly progression,
there was the 286 and the 386. Power users understood the major differences
among the processors, and they could make informed decisions and give sound
advice.
More recently, the winds of
change have increased. Now we have many microprocessors: 386DX, 386SX, 486DX,
486SX, 486DX-50, 486DX2-66, 486DX4-100, 486SX2, Pentium 60, Pentium 66, Pentium
90, and Pentium 100. All of these processors are more-or-less current
technology; they all run Windows 3.1 and WordPerfect 6.0. And there are more
alternatives: all of the chips enumerated just above are manufactured by one
company, but there are at least three other makers of processors that will
execute comparable instruction sets. Add to the list the RISC chips such as the
PowerPC. With such a bewildering array of choices, the novice and the power
user will probably make decisions in similar ways.
Operating systems and new
applications written for them provide similar examples. Using DOS, power users
who understood the AUTOEXEC.BAT and the CONFIG.SYS files were much more
sophisticated users than novices. Now, users of Windows and OS/2 are all pretty
much reduced to the mouse point-click-and-bungle method of operation with
little understanding of what happens behind the user interface. For most
Windows applications, all users simply strive to remember the location of the
buttons for the most important functions (they tend to be found in the upper
left corner), and they flail about on the buttons and pull-down menus when they
can not remember how to select a desired function.
By the way, the number of
buttons and menus of new versions of applications seems to be increasing
dramatically as features expand. Presumably, the new versions must contain
every feature of the old versions, plus they must include the features of the
competition, plus marketing departments will want them to have as many new
(momentarily) unique features as possible -- in order to get the jump on the
competition. Additions of new features (and thus new buttons and menus) are
rather certain to create some confusion, but it is not certain that such
additions will always make computing easier or more powerful for users.
Two colleagues to whom a
draft of this editorial was sent contend that the examples of the winds on the
computer court (described above) are actually comparatively slight -- there are
far stronger winds out there, they say. A French professor who is the director
of a computerized language lab said that he is fighting desperately to solve
overwhelming multimedia and networking problems. There is little doubt that the
multiplicity of monitors, sound cards, network hardware, and transfer rates is
perplexing. Another professor tactfully disagreed with some of my contentions
about change, but he conceded that there is an area that has grown forbiddingly
complex: computer programming. Once, in the old days, he could understand
enough about DOS and about his machine BIOS so that he could write useful
programs (in assembler language), but, now, as an amateur programmer, he can
never learn enough about new languages (such as C++) to write programs that
will run under Windows or OS/2. Those who are not professionals simply cannot
create computer code for a modern multitasking, multithreaded operating system.
In any case, if so-called
power users can only do the same things with computers as novices can do, there
really are no power users. All users will point, click, and bungle.
Well, even if the winds of
change are reducing to one low level the many computer users who are experts in
other areas, I had nevertheless assumed that the winds would not affect
professionals who make their living in the field. I thought that we would
continue to receive accurate professional advice from a manufacturer's
technical staff. I recently had an experience that may show that my assumptions
are wrong.
I have a terrific 486
computer that needed a larger hard drive. In former days, before the winds, I
could probably have contacted my dealer or the manufacturer, and, with little
trouble, I could have been using a larger drive in a short amount of time.
Now, when I contacted the
manufacturer, I was told that I could not order a larger drive of the type I
had (ESDI), but that I could buy a different kind of drive (a SCSI drive would be
good), but then I would also need to buy a new adapter card (disk controller).
I was informed that I could not get the SCSI drive and adapter from the
manufacturer of my computer because they no longer supported the architecture
of my machine (microchannel). As I was advised, I
contacted a third-party supplier, and a drive and adapter were ordered and soon
arrived. However, I was not sent a cable to connect the drive with the adapter.
I called the company, and a cable was sent, but it would not fit the adapter. I
was then sent a converter to attach to the cable. The converter did not fit the
adapter. I was then sent another cable, and it did fit both the drive and the
adapter, but it was pointed out to me that I had a SCSI-2 adapter which
required a 32-bit slot, and I realized that I did not have a 32-bit slot
available for it in my machine. Another adapter was sent. At last, I had the
correct drive, adapter, and cable, but my computer would not recognize the new
hardware. There was a problem in the BIOS that would require a software patch.
After more trouble (and being told that I should shoot my machine), I received
and installed the patch, and the new drive worked!
(Parenthetically, I must
add that I was told -- several times -- that I could keep my old ESDI drive
installed and that I could use the new SCSI drive in parallel with it; this
turned out to be untrue, but I was so delighted to have the large SCSI drive
working at last, that I did not care about the ESDI drive any longer.)
In the process of ordering
a disk drive with the correct adapter and cable that would work with my
machine's architecture and BIOS, I talked with about two dozen technical and
sales representatives who work for two of the most respected computer companies
in this country. Most of these two dozen people gave me erroneous information;
more than once I was told that I could not make a SCSI drive work in my
machine. Only two technical staff members gave me correct and complete
information. With the possible exception of the person who told me to shoot my computer, everyone I talked to seemed to be
making the utmost exertion to assist me. A conclusion that may be drawn from my
experience is that the winds of change in the areas of disk drives, adapters,
cables, computer architecture, and BIOS are affecting professionals to the
extent that they cannot give expert advice about their own products.
Perhaps it is inevitable that those with positions and expertise in areas other than computing will fall behind and can no longer be power users. It may be (to look at the bright side) that there will be marvelous advances in hardware and software resulting from the winds of change, and that the advances will more than compensate for the demise of power users. However, if accurate professional advice can no longer be supplied by computer manufacturers, there are real problems for everyone who uses computers. Possibly a period of gentle winds and stability will arrive during which professionals (and some power users) can catch up. Possibly.
This
article is abstracted from a keynote address given at the 27th Conference of
the Association of Small Computer Users in Education,
“© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
<http://www.uv.es/%7Efores/mainframeuvp.html>”