levels of expertise on software usage
according to Craig A. Finseth, and Emacs fan, whose thesis on text editing technology was regarded as the authority in the field
"""Novice users have used a computer before, perhaps for text editing,
word processing, spread sheet, or database applications. In any event,
novice users have some familiarity with the idea of typing things into
a box and seeing a response that somehow reflects their typing. They
understand how a shift key works, that a lowercase letter 'l' is not
the same as a digit '1', and so forth. They even have some
understanding of the idea of "context:" that keys do different things
at different times. Users with this amount of experience are able to
operate almost any program that has a good design and a decent manual.
Basic users are like novice users, only more so. They understand such
programming concepts as thread of control, variables, and statements
like "A = A + 1" (in fact, many people call such users "programmers").
These users can operate any program, even one with a poor design.
Given source code to the program they are able to customize and extend
it, albeit in what might be an awkward fashion.
Power users know one or more application programs thoroughly. They
understand not only how to use those programs fully, but can often go
beyond the bounds of what the original designers intended. They may
write large programs often in the form of application macros, but do
not design these programs. These users understand the fine points of
the programs that they use.
Programmer-level users understand the theory of programming. When
writing a large program, they design the program before implementing
it. They generalize, applying their experience and their knowledge of
one program to guess how another program will operate.
"""
on debian lists, I come across 3 classifications:
* newbies
* intermediate
* experts
I often consider myself intermediate, though my peers certainly don't
think so, but Craig's classification, puts me at Basic. How useless I
am! Hopefully some day I'll be on Programmer-level, perhaps as a DD.
What's your say?
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