Computer Classes in Schools are why normies are the way they are

Back in the early days, most people did not know how to write or read.
In my family a few generations back almost no one had an education.
The government realized that knowing how to read and write would be terrific for their nations so the concept of a standard school education became a thing.
No mater your status in society, you would know how to do basic math and you would know how to read and write.
Because of this many of our modern communication and business is done with the assumption that an adult has a basic understanding of how to read and write.

Let me list a few assumptions
These two assumptions allow a nation to assume that all people in it will be able to do the following:
Do simple transactions, Read signs, Read mail, Send mail, Take notes, Keep logs.

This is why governments invest heavy into children from ages 5~18 and provide them with a basic education that will allow a nation to operate at a higher level thanks to a simple standard established.

Back in 1980 many computer makers where promoting their home computers as being an investment for children. They claimed that having a home computer would be essential for children due to knowledge of computers and programming would be a must have skill in the future.

Today in 2017 I can tell you that they where right. In the 1990s and early 2000s the kids who grew up using computers in 1980 there those that where first in many new businesses. Even if they where not those that started the business they where either quickly employed by them or in some way benefited from them.

So we can established the benefit of having some computer knowledge. Unfortunately we live in a time where school systems exist for the benefit of companies not the benefit of the nation.

If you where born after 1985, I want you to think back to your Computer Class experience in school.

I will give you a brief taste of my experience
...
Overall these classes where lead by "very professional" female teachers, I assume now that these classes where created to trick administration into thinking that their investment in a "career planning" website for 10 year olds was a good idea. The children would spend the 10 minutes needed to complete the form click submit, get their result, show the teacher and play games for the rest of the class.

I want you to ask yourself what benefit did your computer classes give you?
Compared to the classical classes such as Math and English computer classes seem to be created with no real planning or reason.
They teach kids nothing about Computers, instead they teach them how to use browse websites and write documents.

This gets back to my point on schools educating people for business instead of educating for the benefit of the nation.
Adobe and Microsoft are responsible for filling public schools with their software. They do this for a few reasons.
1) it makes people familiar with their products
2) it frees the schools administration from having to actually think about putting in a computer class that serves a benefit to the nation.

If school administrators where competent they would have made kids learn the concepts of programming by the time they where ready for high school.

Imagine if back in 2000 every single school in the U.S required kids to learn python along side Math and English.
Today we would be living in a completely different world. The consumer electronics such as smart watches and Smart Phones could have had built in scripting languages due to the concepts of programming being a required skill to know in society. Consumer software would have had scripting languages built in to allow for greater customization and automation. Office workers would be able to write their own scripts to loop quickly through repetitive work instead of doing the work manually.

I know the argument of "NOT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW PROGRAMMING YOU AUTIST" but i disagree, unlike engineering or other disciplines, every single person has a computer, not every single person needs to know engineering as not everyone has the equipment that allows them to be a machinist. Programming is the only skill that could benefit people greatly that is not being added to the school systems.

Other urls found in this thread:

wiki.minix3.org/doku.php?id=www:community:consultants
minix3.org/conference/2016/program.html
wiki.minix3.org/doku.php?id=wishlist:start
youtube.com/watch?v=UrxJKjAjFK0
amazon.com/Intro-Java-Programming-Comprehensive-Version/dp/0133761312
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

School doesn't really teach you much, you forget 95% of it when you leave it. Many children already know basic math and reading when they enter school.

Great post OP. As someone from Europe I can say that computer classes during my middle and high school years were pretty much the same. We were taught how to use Microsoft products and that was pretty much it. In high school we had a brief introduction to programming in Python, but a lot of normals in my class had issues following the course. I think the main problem why normals are as they are is that they have no patience. This is the result of constant mental stimulation they receive from social media. If they do not get thing they want right this instant they get very agitated. Programming unfortunately is an activity, that requires patience from the practitioner and thus by it's nature is incompatible with normals. Even now in university (electrical engineering) things are looking sad to say the least. When I look around what I see is normals everywhere. During lectures a lot of them are on socal media or play games on their phones. Occaisonaly when there is a paper to submit they start discussing on how to do this and that in Word or Windows. I can say with confidence that there is less than 2% of GNU/Linux users in whole generation. Concept of free software and privacy is pracically latin to vast majorty of students and university is doing very little to guide students in prehaps better directon. They even offer windows for free of charge with MSDNAA program. Future generations will be even worse. While older folks say they are very skilled with technology in reality they have no idea how any of things they use work. Not even on a basic level. I don't think there is anything in our power that we can do to help a lost cause. Corporations created mindless zombies controled by flashy applications and devices. It's like the world is turning in to matrix right before my eyes.

School doesn't teach enough nowadays. But look at chink education system. We need to accept that this is probably our future standard. Kids need the basics in computing early in their life.

No back then they really didn't really get where computers going. As the clip shows they didn't conceive of your all your data being mounted via a hard drive; your PC always being online along the concept of data living online.

In the 1990's when I was in high school I could see the short fall. We were taught Dos, Windows 3.x and MacOS yet could only taught Unix exists, that it ran the school server but there was no course on it. At this time Minix was out and popular among the computers nerds (along with BeOS) at the time and it wouldn't have taken much for the school to have Minix installed on PCs and some courses teaching Minix since if you teach students how to use Minix they could figure out the other OSs yet the school curriculum was so ridged it wouldn't even have helped them learn how to use MacOS X or modern Windows due to only teaching students how to interface with the specific interface.

Shool lead cumputer skills are shit, what they teach you in school is nothing about how computers work, but how to work with standart applications.
For this no school is nessesary, most companys train their own people on the software they use and that is all the employees ever use.
Most normies no nothing about computers, they use a computer like their smartphones, everything not app related is useless to them.

In school teachers prohibit kids in engaging in "hacking" once beacause they are stupid, second because they dont want kids to be better than the rest. I know teachers that call parents to prevent further education of the child, because it would discourage other kids in class. They label it as unhealthy behaviors.

Kids dont learn real cumputer skills there, because the goverment does not want a potentially dangerous population, when everything is connected to computers.

In the U.S free speech is a thing.
This is why facebook and twitter are important to isolate the tech illiterate into a controlled room where only acceptable speech is allowed.

SNOWDEN
just to list the US interest groups.
When more people know about programming and computers in general, encryption and other privacy programs get more sophisticated and wide spread. Especially the CIA and NSA will not like the idea that their work gets harder or impossible, they are Intelligence agency and if the public and the enemies know how to hide their messages, you know what this means.
Then lawgivers will prohibit such services by the influence of the intelligence agencys, but people would just ignore it and use encrypted servers and clouds in the Kongo or such.
For that reason the Goverment has a interest that the public stays simple on their computer knowledge.

False.

Even if you end up forgetting how to calculate the limit when x approaches 0 of X/2, the simple exercise of understanding it at some point creates new neural paths.

The same thing can be applied to reading. Being able to understand complex sentences and ideas (which you will most likely not find in your daily life) is actually good for the brain.

If you want an entire generation to work at McDonald's, then yes, you don't need to teach them anything besides basic arithmetic and basic grammar. Otherwise you have to teach more stuff.

Now, I actually think OP is wrong here. We need less computer classes and more cooking/mechanical/social classes. Millenials are inept at everything except posting bullshit on Facebook. Take away their phones and they don't have any skill, any talent in the real world.

Manual labor is important, having a basic understanding of how things work is important and not depending on some random company to fix everything in your life is important, too.

You can say anything you want, as long as you like being seen saying it.
I cannot break the law due to my degree so i assume big brother mode.
Does not stop me shitposting. In fact the shitposting creates plausible misinterpretations. The more they see the better. Because it makes the data useless :^)

They have no idea how any of the technology they use on a regular basis even works, it's mindboggling how they're able to live without have a single fucking clue about what they rely on each day.

But isn't that the whole system in general?

if anything, we should have less

the only people who should be programming are the ones who were interested enough to teach themselves. spending any time showing this stuff to the uninterested is a waste of effort.

even if what you are proposing was implemented, they would end up teaching a very bad language to students (catering to common denominator, ie: jamal & the boys). imagine a whole country of imbecile web devs.

there's a greater social problem at play here.

do you realize what you are saying? no such thing could ever happen. instead, everyone will be dragged down to the level of peasants.

my interest in programming would have been irrevocably destroyed had i been forced to "learn" it in school.

tl;dr you're a faggot who unironically uses the term "normies"

you where forced to learn how to read
you where forced to learn how to do math

if we had a society that forced people to learn programming you would be saying
Being able to program is a floor that lets you built upon and do other things

If you want to encourage computer literacy, you need to incentivise it in schools. They should allow computers and programmable calculators in math/science tests. Allow students to make their own programs to help them solve questions on the test. If they know the material well enough to make a program to solve it, then they should be rewarded.

When I was in school, I made a bunch of chemistry programs on my calculator. I still needed to show my work on the tests, but the program served to verify that my hand-derived answer was correct.

Obligatory programming lessons in school means that the average adult should be able to make a shell script and trivial programs in other kinds of dynamically typed, garbage collected, interpreted languages. Now everyone can make their own spaghetti code for routine home tasks. And nothing of value was gained.
There is a reason people use calculators instead of doing math that they are supposed to know well. It's faster and the chance of mistakes are negligible. Of course, most adults' knowledge of mathematics stops at simple calculations. The average adult can't do calculus. Don't expect the an adult to be able to write, say, kernel modules for their os just because they were taught about loops and variables in school.

As for writing and reading, back when that was a thing you did because of your own effort and interest, at least a significant amount of everything that was written or read was supposed to be interesting. Now most everything written is bullshit social media shit. If everyone knew how to program, github would be filled with redundant, awfully designed software. If "normie" standards for software irritate you, I don't see how that would be a desirable outcome.

Right as the y2k craze was at its zenith I had a computer class that felt more like a drivers ed class about computing and the internet. It was perfect; explained the very basics of commercial software licensing and why pirating was a bad idea, how spam and viruses through email work, the fundamentals of a GUI so you wouldn't be fooled by a popup window and can move files around/create folders, not to trust strangers or give out any identifying information, standard keyboard shortcuts and how to access documentation for software.

All of it was good advice delivered in a common sense manner unlike anything else I'd encountered in a school curriculum, there were no tests or grades that I can remember. Later on all the computer classes I had were complete bullshit focused on using a specific program over 3-4 months and slowly progressing through assignments with a final project that was supposed to test your knowledge.

The problem is there are too many worthless teachers with time to fill up by doing pointless busywork. They don't care if you learn how to use a computer properly, their job is to have you pass a standardized test and then deal with the next batch of students.

nigger the computer classes i had in school were on Apple IIe computer with the exception of a COBOL (really useful right guise?) class in high school on Win 95 or 98. i think you're confusing classes where your teacher took you to the computer lab, versus an actual class on computers.


found the underage

Minix still exist today. Back in mid 1990's nobody was sure if Minix or Linux would dominate. Also Windows 3.x was too gear towards noobs compared to Minix to actually teach students how Operating Systems work.

I took a bunch of computer classes back in school, and I'm still not sure if my experience was typical for American schools or if it was below even those standards. I think the only course I took that had any lasting value was keyboarding, and that's only because they put a cover over the keyboards and forced you to learn touch-typing.

K-12 courses were basically "here's a program/language from 8 years ago, let's teach this even though nobody uses this in the real world, hooray you're learning computers!" which I guess was to be expected from a district that spends half its budget on the football team. College courses might be somewhat better, but I guess it depends on your college, really. Mine was a two-year college that only offered "intro to (x)" courses, so my experience was pretty shit. I should've tried to test out of all those, but too late now.

Computer education is definitely a mess, but I really don't know how to go about improving it. They already teach keyboarding, and I imagine that maybe they teach online safety now. Your average joe isn't going to care about programming unless it's for "im such a nerd" purposes. Learning to diagnose and fix basic problems (malware, no internet, etc) on a computer would be useful for most people, but PCs are becoming less widely used in the wake of phones and tablets.

In my school we just played the original Sim City and Oregon Trail.

t. American

Well, then i guess i just was lucky. In school i had OOP. Also my school used Linux.

That's pretty lucky. It's rare for an administration to not get cucked by Microsoft and use Loonix instead.

tbh if kids aren't coding or at least fucking around on their computer by middle school, "computer classes" are gonna do jack shit

...

So does SunOS if you could disks laying around in a closet somewhere. If you look at their webpage there are only 4 people in the world who know enough about it to use it in a professional setting.

wiki.minix3.org/doku.php?id=www:community:consultants

If you look at the talks from their conference they're still adding support for link agreegation and are testing it on 100Mbit/1Gbit networks. Its like they're stuck in the 90s

minix3.org/conference/2016/program.html

If you look at their feature wishlist even basic things like USB storage are missing. FFS even things like Microchip microcontrollers come with this.

wiki.minix3.org/doku.php?id=wishlist:start

I wouldnt be surprised if TempleOS has more features than Minix if you were to ignore its lack of networking support.

As you said Minix is still being developed, painfully slow and mostly only academics use Minix. Though this is not the point, if you time traveled two students from 1994 to the present day, one learned on Minix 1.5 the other Windows 3.11, which do you think would catch up with modern computing first?

You do realize that Windows NT 3.5 was out in 1994? Oh wait that right, you just tried to exclude Windows 95 and forgot entirely about NT because you werent using computers in the mid 90s.

I just looked this up and learned that Windows doesn't actually support link aggregation. Apparently this responsibility is delegated to third party network interface drivers. Absolutely shocking.

How many high schools had NT in 1994? My high school went from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95.

It always comes from the network drivers. The difference here is that because literally no one uses Minix, they have to write their own drivers.


A shit ton more than used Minix in 1994. Also

Hate to be NSA here, but could you share a little bit of information about your experience at school?
Feel like you're one of the very very lucky ones.

My high school was running AIX for its server but there was no Unix course. Minix was popular among the hardcore computer geeks at my school because the high school had Internet meaning we could grab Minix and learn Unix by installing Minix at home.

Mine had a HP9K and a ton for NT servers. No one cares about your exception.

I'm sure this story is completely true.


certainly sounds legit

Why would it be a exception, other high schools probably had the same setup as my high school just got IBM to set it up.

Have you ever tried downloading large file sizes over dial-up?

This is right on the money.

They taught me that the people writing the course material were only capable of projecting their own miserably tiny experience with computers onto others.
High school taught me how a trashcan fire of conflicting misconfigured security programs running on resource-starved obsolete government hand-me-down win2k computers will completely destroy any semblance of productivity.
The forgettable community college course I did down the road from there showed me the full extent of their ignorance, and that I could look forward to a career of writing dry, meaningless reports in windows/office[$CURRENTVER - 2] day after day. The closest it came to any actual computer subject was how they tried to drill in the idea that Software Is Designed Using The Waterfall Methodology™.

Everything useful I learned about computers growing up, I did outside of formal education's pitiful attempts at indoctrination. There are no local computing jobs because everyone is spoon-fed the same worthless shit and as a result can't do anything for themselves. I can take a steady supply of easy money from the computer-illiterate locals just by setting up a printer in 3 minutes or whatever for them, but I don't bother. It's degrading just to interact with them.

wtf does this have to do with anything? Modern minix3 is 25 MB for a full OS install. 25MB wasnt difficult back then. I pirated plenty of things. MacOS 7.5 is from the same era and 15 floppies. Windows 95 came on 13. 14.4kbps modems were common in 1994, and 25MB would take less than 5 hours to download.

So wait, let me get this right. You're pretending you're not a teenager, but you think no one pirated things back in the 90s because muh slow dialup? stop larping and just give up.

I'm sorry, 25MB of RAM. Regardless, minix in 1994 wouldnt have taken more disk space for the installers than MacOS or Win95. FFS I even did dumb shit like install OpenBSD on a Mac IIsi which I downloaded. Dial up never prevented people from downloading OSes at home.

Primary and high schools can't teach programming because the skills required of a teacher are different to the skills required to program. The teacher can't teach programming because they don't know how. They were never taught


Problem with that is anyone who makes the program that calculates the solution will give it out to all the other students. The solution to this is to make the tests harder so that the questions rely on constructing everything that goes into the problem that gets plugged into a calculator, but then you need to supply the calculator and the software. Not a problem by itself but people're gonna bitch about the money involved.

This is also how the robotics and dynamics courses taught at my university were. The maths involved was nothing special, some linear algebra and entry level calculus at most. Figuring out how to go from the diagram as given to the equations needed to solve the question was the important part.

Minix 3.3 is 288 MB
Minix 2.0.4 is shy of 30 MB
Minix 1.7.5 is 14 MB

I never said dial-up prevented people from downloading large files yet when you have access to a good connection with a file server that can grab shit from the Internet why would you avoid downloading stuff at school? Fine when you were at high school you never used the schools server to get stuff off the Internet, I did and I showed others how.

Oh and then there was the stupid metering at least where I was at that time, yes unlimited dial-up followed but there was a time when you had to pay for every hour you were connected.

Though we are going way off track and you haven't answered my question, do you think Windows 3.x or Minix 1.x was better in learning about operating system in the early 1990's?

This
t. millennial

Can you stop posting here.
You shilling systemd, anti-net neutrality and slides every thread you're in

nigger when i had dial up in the 90s it was a single fee from the telco to connect

Windows because people actually use it.

You do this to yourself.

Good for you


But Windows 3.x was over simplified and was nothing like other OSs (plus a buggy mess), at least Minix mimicked the interface of Unix systems. Windows 3.x was nothing like Windows NT or Windows 95 so it was a deadend for students.

Basic math and literacy was done for the sake of companies, not the "nation", it was necessary to teach the sons and daughters of the peasant class the basic skills needed to work on a factory. Education has always been at the service of companies and not the nation, that is not to say it was not a positive thing, just merely pointing it out.

OP, I get what you're trying to say but you have a poor understanding of history that unfortunately undermines your entire argument, education isn't nationalist as much as it is capitalist, yes nationalism played a part of course but isn't the main factor determining the nature of an educational system, education will in ultimate instance always be shaped by what the needs of capital are in a determinate historical moment -and again, I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing- just as in the late 19th century a factory worker only needed to be able to read instructions and perform basic arithmetic operations, an office drone in the 21st century only needs to know how to turn on a computer and use Microsoft® Office.

Things interestingly are changing, as points out in the future it may become a necessity that workers become computer literate in order for the western economy to stay competitive.

Directly benefiting a company and benefiting all companies is not the same thing.
If everyone knew how to program it would help all the companies in the country, simply because they would be able to get more efficient work due to automation

There has been some efforts to teach children how to code using the blocky "kids learn to code" websites. What it boils down to is interest, just as showing a kid someone playing piano very good in order to trigger an interest in learning to play piano, there has to be a program you can show to a kid (like a video game) that sparks their interest in order to start learning.

I grew up with Windows and 56K connection and early on I was given a pocket book on HTML programming in my native language. Although it's not programming, it spiked my interest in making things that looked like programs or just play around with the marquee tag.

Eventually I started tinkering with Windows Batch to make fancy programs that did nothing and in college we were taught basic actionscript for flash animations.

Today I've gone through moderate amounts of C, C++, Visual C#, Python, JavaScript, Lua, Bash, Batch, regexp to call myself seasoned veteran. As a kid, I doubt I would have any interest in learning about pointers and registers as the attention span was very low.

If I were to send myself links to resources in the past, it would be Lua with Löve or Python with PyGame just to get myself started. Learning to make any program in C or C++ takes too much time from scratch rather than tinkering with a high level language like Lua or Python.

...

Terminal based games work great for starting with C/C++ as well. Although you may have to abstract away some of the terminal setup depending on how much your students suck at reading documentation.

Ultimately, programming is a mix of logical and creative disciplines. If you lack either one, then you're gonna end up not really enjoying it. Lack the logical side and you won't be able to build up from "add some variables" to "move an object around". Lack the creative side and you won't have any idea how to create a solution to a problem.

You never used NT 3.5 did you? The UI was exactly the same as Win 3.1

I couldn't agree more OP. Computers were made to be tools and people should be taught how to use them. Beyond just learning software. Companies want efficient workers and the ability for someone to automate their daily tasks saves a huge chunk of time.

The education system would be better of if their where more investment in basic literacy in stead of computer literacy.

How many people still use NT3.5? Modern NT system look nothing like Windows 3.x or NT 3.x yet Minix still is similar to Unix, BSD and Linux.

what's the source of that webm?

wow you're desperate

Episode 5 of TVO's Bits and Bytes

youtube.com/watch?v=UrxJKjAjFK0

Opps replied to the wrong post. See post above for source to webm.

If I had to learn programming in school I would have probably lost interest and avoided it for the rest of my life because I did it in school. Because I didn't learn computers in school I was enthusiastic when I started learning on my own, now I have a wide range of useful skills that grew from that. I have a huge motivation problem but I have no issue doing most computer related "work" since it began in my free time.

I think a lot of people would have not found interest in computers if they were taught in school. Most people who work with computers today have some kind of affinity towards computers and care about their job, or at least in countries like the US.

Wow that kid is so nerdy, he reads xkcd xDDD

I thought you abandoned the thread, didn't even expect the response. Thanks.

I disagree.
you are currently reading this post
you wrote the post

Following this logic you would be doing something right now that was related to programming
reverse engineering/graphics programming/server maintenance
and telling people that you would have no interest in X if you had to learn it in school.

I think that the school system should change to employ less cat ladies and maybe then the system will improve.

While this is mostly untrue and more to do with elitism than actual interests I have to agree with you to some extent. I basically have the same deal as you but I acknowledge that it's more of an exception than a rule and you most likely get pleasure from progressing in a field that isn't "available to everyone" because it isn't taugh in schools, much to the same vain as occultists usually give similar lines vs. theologists.

You're missing the broader picture, the only reason webdevs and nird grrrlz are able to bullshit their way into tech is because normalfags don't know any programming, so even the simplest trick that any 1980s 5-year-old with a ROM BASIC would laugh at is seen to be an equally impressive feat as what actual low-level programmers do.

If every normalfag was capable of pajeet-tier scripting, programmers would again be elevated to the position of exclusivity and respect they deserve, free of dilution from bamboozling con artists.

School is shit and literally the only reason the education system as we know it today it exists is political indoctrination.

Less school is the answer. Get rid of 90% of the curriculum and just have english, math, science PE, and computer classes.

So what?
It triggers you?

You forgot to also add Russian and Chinese.
These languages will be soon very important to you, Americans. ;)

...

Suggest a better alternative.

I was born in the early 90s. First computer classes at school were in the early 00s, when we were about 10 years old. We were taught basic office stuff like typing with then fingers, web surfing, emailing and creating word documents. We also played some educational games.

Later we had more MS office stuff, eg excel. Also we had more advanced classes that could be chosen voluntarily, I think with more office stuff and creating simple web pages with HTML and maybe some other things I've forgotten. In senior high school it was pretty much assumed that we could use computers for basic stuff like writing texts, emailing, finding information and such. Also there was one funny voluntary course fiddling with old hardware (basically old discarded school computers ) and installing OSs (eg. Ubuntu) to them.

So yeah, the whole system was infested with propietary software and the compulsory courses were not much, the interesting stuff was taught in optional courses. Also not many ordinary teachers were prominent users of computers. I'm still happy that we were given decent instructions so early on. But then again I'm from the autistic Republic of Finland. I think at that time we were among the fastest countries to adapt new IT technology.

I don't remember any classes about programming. Some would have been fine in senior high school, since some people were already coding anyway. I guess all the "nerdy" stuff was left for people to do in their free time. And I think that's OK, no public school can inspire and teach programming effectively.

Nowadays the IT teaching trend has flipped fully over in Finland. Programming is to be included less or more to every stage in elementary school. I don't know if this is any good. I mean, it sounds good until I think about my average school environment. Most people came to school to learn read and write and mathematics & ordinary subjects (albeit most people are familiar with those already before starting school), and suddenly they are supposed to code, which pretty much builds on top of maths and writing. Also, programming languages are derived from English, which is taught only later (idk if they are planning to move that also to fist class).

One more thing. I think it is morally wrong to teach IT and programming in propietary environment, especially programming. FOSS is essential in the area of giving examples of code about fully-fledged programs. In FOSS environment, teacher is able to give good answers when students ask how everyday programs they use works. Propietary programs are magic black boxes, forcing students to stare only that wall of secrecy, when they are about to reach someting that interests them. I believe rms has said something similar, of course worded differently.

Not everyone CAN program. Most normie brains are fundamentally incapable of grasping it. You even see this in CS programs in college.

That's their entire business model, user. Apple was famous for this, they'd offer Apple IIs and Macs to schools for crazy low prices and sometimes even for free, and they ended up winning a crucial bidding process with MECC, creator of the famous Oregon Trail games. Later on, when the company was losing money they still had a grip on the education sector, and when Jobs came back the G3 iMac was a huge seller among schools. They kept the all-in-one line alive because schools were buying them by the truckload, with models such as the LC 5x0, Power Mac 5x00, Classic, G3 AIO, and the eMac being engineered to win education contracts. At the same time, their marketing department knew this was a valuable selling point to parents who knew nothing about computers, and there were ads marketing the Mac and Apple II lines to these people as "the computers your kid uses in school."

Now look at Microsoft and Google. Both are trying to chase after this demographic, and get their software into the minds of kids. Netbooks and 2 in 1 convertible laptops running Windows, Tablets running Android, Chromebooks, Macs, and iPads are all trying to compete for this market. Their goal is to get the school staff who will buy it, the teachers who will teach it, and the kids who will learn to become loyal customers on board with their product, so that when little Jimmy goes out into the real world for the first time the first thing he'll do when he wants a computer is to buy something with whatever he learned how to use in school.

slightly off topic but relevant.

college student here any of you anons know where i can snag an intro to java programming 10th edition pdf download?

for free

First: ask in the right thread. This is not the right one.
Second: put that tiny effort to find it on your own. That book exists on the Internet. I've actually found, in less than 3 minutes, 2 links to the entire book on the Internet.
To be honest, I didn't know about that book, thanks. It looks good although I'm not currently interested in Java.

I assume this one:
amazon.com/Intro-Java-Programming-Comprehensive-Version/dp/0133761312
If you have money and are from a developed country, buy it. The guy probably deserves those $164 for 1345 pages. It looks well written. But it should be significantly cheaper.