What Time Is It? 

First you need to get some quartz. You'll need to be able to cut it to a very specific size too. This is going to get difficult, because you are going to apply an electrical impulse to the crystal, which will make it vibrate at a very specific rate determined by that size. Next, you're going to need a way to measure those vibrations accurately. Nick, what are you doing? You asked what time it is.

It is perhaps one of the most classic jokes on engineers. Don't ask an engineer for the time, because he'll tell you how to build a watch. But what happens if the person asking the question is a watch making apprentice, and he's asking an expert watch craftsman for the time? Is it wrong to expect the apprentice to need, or even want, to know how the watch comes up with the final answer?

This is the problem that I constantly face as I teach .NET programming to COBOL programmers. I'm constantly fighting their need to just know the basics to get something done, with my desire for them to know how it actually does what they want it to do. Sooner or later that knowledge will be important as they do more and more complicated things.

Building blocks Nick... start small and go from there. First teach them how to tell time before teaching them how to build the watch. One of these days I'll get it.