Like baking a cake

[Adrienne Boswell]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme

One of the things about it, is it's nice thinking about cakes.
Luckily, where I live, there is possibly one of the best bread
and cake shops in the world. I have honestly thought of this as a
factor inhibiting selling up and moving elsewhere....

I know what you mean. I live in Glendale, California, in the US.
Glendale is 55% Armenian. If there's two things Armenians excel at, it's
baking and barbeque. Where I live, I am within smelling distance of an
open pit Armenian shish-ka-bob barbeque restaurant, and a large bakery.
Let me tell you, they definately give European bakeries a run for their
money, and Texans would spit at their own barbeque in disgust.

 

[dorayme]

I think you miss the subtlety of what David Segall is meaning or
the mistake in the idea he is lampooning. It is not that there
are not recipes, or various analogies but rather that if it was
really like baking a cake, you would expect people to find it
easier to make websites that work well and seem reasonably
pleasant.

And they do. They use a packet cakemix called frontpage. Cakes which
taste ok to 80% of the population. They can "seem r[/QUOTE]

Yes, thanks Joe... I know... one can go on forever with these
analogies but you need to be very careful to target what someone
might not be understanding at all and make a very specific
analogy to help them...

Exactly! Cakes are not all the same. Sponge-cake, mud-cake, .....

Anyone can bake a cake. Not everyone can bake a GOOD cake, and I
certainly would not expect them to be able to do so without a good grasp
of the fundamentals.

In other words the analogy is not very useful really... not
really really... getting it?

 

[dorayme]

One of the things about it, is it's nice thinking about cakes.
Luckily, where I live, there is possibly one of the best bread
and cake shops in the world. I have honestly thought of this as a
factor inhibiting selling up and moving elsewhere....

I know what you mean. I live in Glendale, California, in the US.
Glendale is 55% Armenian. If there's two things Armenians excel at, it's
baking and barbeque. Where I live, I am within smelling distance of an
open pit Armenian shish-ka-bob barbeque restaurant, and a large bakery.
Let me tell you, they definately give European bakeries a run for their
money, and Texans would spit at their own barbeque in disgust.[/QUOTE]

Sounds nice. All this talk is making me hungry.

 

[Joe]

Yes, thanks Joe... I know... one can go on forever with these
analogies but you need to be very careful to target what someone
might not be understanding at all and make a very specific
analogy to help them...

Obviously to be useful, the reference should be within the realm of
experience of the listener.

In other words the analogy is not very useful really... not
really really... getting it?

Maybe that's the problem. Martians don't bake cakes, do they?

In any case, the original thesis was that "everything is either cookery
or dressmaking". The whole webpage/cake thing is an example of how you
can use the skills learned in the kitchen to make learning (or applying)
any other skill easier. In the words of Hercule Poirot "Order and Method
and the little grey cells". - or Archie Goodwin: "Intelligence guided
by experience".

 

[dorayme]

In any case, the original thesis was that "everything is either cookery
or dressmaking".

OK, I will tell you what I find uncomfortable about this thesis.
It is the same as what is uncomfortable about theological
statements and some "scientific sounding" statements, namely,
that it is impossible to even think of a possible fault because
the defender can always stretch it to cover anything at all. Now
you are supposing this is its great strength but that is not at
all so, a thesis that can be defended against anything at all is
a thesis that says very little in the final scheme of things. You
might have to trust me on this. You need to. I would not mislead
you. Honest.

 

[Joe]

OK, I will tell you what I find uncomfortable about this thesis.
It is the same as what is uncomfortable about theological
statements and some "scientific sounding" statements, namely,
that it is impossible to even think of a possible fault because
the defender can always stretch it to cover anything at all. Now
you are supposing this is its great strength but that is not at
all so, a thesis that can be defended against anything at all is
a thesis that says very little in the final scheme of things. You
might have to trust me on this. You need to. I would not mislead
you. Honest.

I'll give it some thought, but it's likely I will continue to advocate
teaching cookery and dressmaking to primary school children, because I
reckon those skills, once gained, are portable into every (most?)
endeavour.

I've never met a Martian I didn't trust.

 

[dorayme]

I'll give it some thought, but it's likely I will continue to advocate
teaching cookery and dressmaking to primary school children...

Ah! Now you are talking... for primary school children to give
them nice images and confidence....