This hits the nail on the head of a feeling I've been having for years now. Computers used to be fun and exciting. Learning how to program was a hobby for me.

This hits the nail on the head of a feeling I've been having for years now. Computers used to be fun and exciting. Learning how to program was a hobby for me. Opening up that Gateway 486DX to tinker with the insides of it and swap parts out was fascinating. Yes they were big bulky and prone to failure but it was still fun. Nowadays everything is integrated, soldered on and you need a laundry list of tools to even open the casing. Used to be you could just get a star head screw driver out of the kitchen and be done. All of the whining about the new Macbook made me sigh. Get over yourselves. The internet was a fascinating place before. I remember frequenting forums like http://www.hack3r.com/ http://www.hack3r.com/ and reading a python tutorial, finding a mistake in it and chatting on IRC with the writer who treated me as an equal, not just some 13 year old kid. On other forums there was debate and deep conversation. Trolls and extremism was not welcome. Now we have twitter and Facebook where it's all "me me me" and no one is having real conversations anymore. Just short bursts of it. Now when I start a project and someone asks me "Why are you using <INSERT NEW TECH HERE>?" I roll my eyes and groan. It's a single page website with a form on it. I'll code it up in Notepad++, capture the form data and save it to a database thank you very much. I'll get it done quickly and commit it to source. No need for me to spin up Node, grunt, yeoman and whatever other shiny thing you're talking about. I'll be dammed if I even use jQuery. I've been day dreaming about going into another field where I can still maintain my standard of living, but then program again just as a hobby at home. Anyone know of a good field outside of the tech industry that a developer mindset would thrive in?