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not sure that many of them are truths. Seems more like like millennial speak. "Things are hard!" no...relative to you and your experiences it might be the har

not sure that many of them are truths. Seems more like like millennial speak. "Things are hard!" no...relative to you and your experiences it might be the hardest thing you've gone through, but in absolute terms, they aren't hard. Learning programming has never been easier. Us oldtimers can tell you stories about "Hard".

throwaway2016a 9y ago
As a millennial I reject that categorization and we need to stop using it. Millennial is too broad. I'm a millennial and I learned to program in the mid 90's from actual paper books. I share almost nothing in common with the people graduating college right now. Edit: Also, for every "life is hard" millennial I have met many hard working, extremely intelligent, and charitable ones. Some of whom need to work multiple jobs dealing with the fact that our generation has almost no upward mobility unless you do something like learn to code. The fact that a terrible houses cost amounts of money that years ago would get you a mansion (even when adjusted for inflation) and where spending $100k on college does not even remotely guarantee you a job. Where pensions don't exist and retirement is a pipe dream. Every millennial I know over 25 has been laid off, some multiple times. Edit 2: furthermore, in the United States, my generation has never known a time where we were not at war. And we are the ones being sent to those wars.
- keithnz 9y ago
  the categorization is statistical representing common patterns, it's not defining the traits for all individuals. I don't live in the US... perhaps vote for someone who will help change it to a better system?
  - throwaway2016a 9y ago
    I wasn't the one generalizing all millennials. The post I was replying to was. My post is specifically about not generalizing. Also, to think one person (the president) can magically fix decades of compounding problems is naive. It's also naive to think we are isolated from the rest of the world and we can magically unlink our economy from it. With that said, about 50% of millennials voted last election and 83% are registered to vote. So I'd say a large number of us did vote for the person we think will change things. Edit: and almost without exception the millennials I know who didn't vote did it because they felt neither candidate was acceptable.
    - keithnz 9y ago
      you were claiming that a generalization doesn't hold for specific cases... which will never invalidate a generalization, because a generalization works "in general" not for specific cases :) you only get to vote for the president?! do you live in a democracy where you can vote to get things changed? or perhaps people in america just like it that way. maybe it is naive, but other democratic countries are moving ahead with more progressive ideas.
      - throwaway2016a 9y ago
        > you were claiming that a generalization doesn't hold for specific cases... which will never invalidate a generalization, because a generalization works "in general" not for specific cases :) Very true > you only get to vote for the president?! We vote for the president, senate, congress, and local representatives. We rarely vote for individual issues (like say Brexit) on a national level, those are usually decided for us. > do you live in a democracy where you can vote to get things changed? or perhaps people in america just like it that way. maybe it is naive, but other democratic countries are moving ahead with more progressive ideas America is a Constitutional Republic not a true democracy. We don't even get one vote per person. Our votes are broken up into statistical areas that are winner take all. And I can assure you that many Americans don't like it that way but it is very difficult to change in a two party system. Which is why many people (millennials more than any other group) are pushing to end the 2 party system.
- eosrei 9y ago
  If it helps, according to some researchers, the people graduating college right now are not Millennials. They are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z
mattacular 9y ago
Actually it is harder to learn certain types of programming now than ever before due to the proliferation of incidental complexity and tooling. Take web development frontend for example. Back in the 90s, you could get away with knowing basic HTML and a bit of JavaScript becaus CSS didnt even exist yet. Frameworks were certainly not a thing. Other forms of systems programming that involve concurrency etc are also newer. So is cloud. The list goes on... Every generation faces issues and programming IS hard. It is unfair and condescending to write this office as a millennial concern.
nothrabannosir 9y ago
To be perfectly honest, even though you may have a good point, I feel so alienated by the phrasing I'm having a very hard time seeing through it. What are you saying below that insult and pontificating? "It used to be harder"? "I am better"? "Old people are better"? Honestly I'm not being facetious, I just can't give this comment a constructive spin. What is the essence?
- keithnz 9y ago
  simple, hard is a relative term. Because someone has a harder environment doesn't make them better? not sure how you came up with that implication, if anything, it might make them worse off. Starting programming these days, you have a massive boost over starting it 40 years ago. It's not a truth that programming is hard. It might "feel" hard for some, might not be for others. Learning programming is really easy these days, and I'm sure will get even easier. The hardest thing these days seems to be making choices between the absolute abundance of creations that are available in the world of programming.
wvenable 9y ago
> Learning programming has never been easier. I disagree. If only because as programming has gotten easier, what constitutes even a simple app has gotten a lot more demanding.
- throwaway2016a 9y ago
  That is a decent point. To write even a basic web app properly you need to know a half a dozen libraries. To deploy it you need to know even more plus probably know about infrastructure and networking. Then to write the frontend you need to know several specifications and libraries for that as well. For many applications parallel and concurrent processing is not a nice to have but mandatory and apps can be distributed across hundreds of machine. I remember reading RFCs when I was getting started. You could learn all of HTTP by reading two RFCs. Now you have to read a dozen if you want comprehensive knowledge of just HTML.
  - keithnz 9y ago
    you don't, install meteor, you can be writing a simple deployable web app in no time. Easier than I've ever known it, to the point I've helped non programmers get started with it and they can get productive with it pretty easily and deploy things for real use. Very few apps need to be distributed across hundreds of machines, but even there, there's so much tech available to make it pretty easy. No need to deal with the details of the nightmare that was RPC / DCOM / CORBA
    - throwaway2016a 9y ago
      Meteor just defers the problem until you need to scale. It is also pretty hard to do security well with Meteor (not impossible, it can be done effectively, just really easy to mess up if you don't pay attention). You also may be right about hundreds but a great many apps need to be distributed across more than two. Edit: also, for the record, as a millennial I did have to deal with DCOM. Although granted most are shielded from it.
      - 9y ago

throwaway2016a 9y ago

As a millennial I reject that categorization and we need to stop using it. Millennial is too broad. I'm a millennial and I learned to program in the mid 90's from actual paper books. I share almost nothing in common with the people graduating college right now. Edit: Also, for every "life is hard" millennial I have met many hard working, extremely intelligent, and charitable ones. Some of whom need to work multiple jobs dealing with the fact that our generation has almost no upward mobility unless you do something like learn to code. The fact that a terrible houses cost amounts of money that years ago would get you a mansion (even when adjusted for inflation) and where spending $100k on college does not even remotely guarantee you a job. Where pensions don't exist and retirement is a pipe dream. Every millennial I know over 25 has been laid off, some multiple times. Edit 2: furthermore, in the United States, my generation has never known a time where we were not at war. And we are the ones being sent to those wars.

keithnz 9y ago
the categorization is statistical representing common patterns, it's not defining the traits for all individuals. I don't live in the US... perhaps vote for someone who will help change it to a better system?
- throwaway2016a 9y ago
  I wasn't the one generalizing all millennials. The post I was replying to was. My post is specifically about not generalizing. Also, to think one person (the president) can magically fix decades of compounding problems is naive. It's also naive to think we are isolated from the rest of the world and we can magically unlink our economy from it. With that said, about 50% of millennials voted last election and 83% are registered to vote. So I'd say a large number of us did vote for the person we think will change things. Edit: and almost without exception the millennials I know who didn't vote did it because they felt neither candidate was acceptable.
  - keithnz 9y ago
    you were claiming that a generalization doesn't hold for specific cases... which will never invalidate a generalization, because a generalization works "in general" not for specific cases :) you only get to vote for the president?! do you live in a democracy where you can vote to get things changed? or perhaps people in america just like it that way. maybe it is naive, but other democratic countries are moving ahead with more progressive ideas.
    - throwaway2016a 9y ago
      > you were claiming that a generalization doesn't hold for specific cases... which will never invalidate a generalization, because a generalization works "in general" not for specific cases :) Very true > you only get to vote for the president?! We vote for the president, senate, congress, and local representatives. We rarely vote for individual issues (like say Brexit) on a national level, those are usually decided for us. > do you live in a democracy where you can vote to get things changed? or perhaps people in america just like it that way. maybe it is naive, but other democratic countries are moving ahead with more progressive ideas America is a Constitutional Republic not a true democracy. We don't even get one vote per person. Our votes are broken up into statistical areas that are winner take all. And I can assure you that many Americans don't like it that way but it is very difficult to change in a two party system. Which is why many people (millennials more than any other group) are pushing to end the 2 party system.
eosrei 9y ago
If it helps, according to some researchers, the people graduating college right now are not Millennials. They are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z

mattacular 9y ago

Actually it is harder to learn certain types of programming now than ever before due to the proliferation of incidental complexity and tooling. Take web development frontend for example. Back in the 90s, you could get away with knowing basic HTML and a bit of JavaScript becaus CSS didnt even exist yet. Frameworks were certainly not a thing. Other forms of systems programming that involve concurrency etc are also newer. So is cloud. The list goes on... Every generation faces issues and programming IS hard. It is unfair and condescending to write this office as a millennial concern.

nothrabannosir 9y ago

To be perfectly honest, even though you may have a good point, I feel so alienated by the phrasing I'm having a very hard time seeing through it. What are you saying below that insult and pontificating? "It used to be harder"? "I am better"? "Old people are better"? Honestly I'm not being facetious, I just can't give this comment a constructive spin. What is the essence?

keithnz 9y ago
simple, hard is a relative term. Because someone has a harder environment doesn't make them better? not sure how you came up with that implication, if anything, it might make them worse off. Starting programming these days, you have a massive boost over starting it 40 years ago. It's not a truth that programming is hard. It might "feel" hard for some, might not be for others. Learning programming is really easy these days, and I'm sure will get even easier. The hardest thing these days seems to be making choices between the absolute abundance of creations that are available in the world of programming.

wvenable 9y ago

> Learning programming has never been easier. I disagree. If only because as programming has gotten easier, what constitutes even a simple app has gotten a lot more demanding.

throwaway2016a 9y ago
That is a decent point. To write even a basic web app properly you need to know a half a dozen libraries. To deploy it you need to know even more plus probably know about infrastructure and networking. Then to write the frontend you need to know several specifications and libraries for that as well. For many applications parallel and concurrent processing is not a nice to have but mandatory and apps can be distributed across hundreds of machine. I remember reading RFCs when I was getting started. You could learn all of HTTP by reading two RFCs. Now you have to read a dozen if you want comprehensive knowledge of just HTML.
- keithnz 9y ago
  you don't, install meteor, you can be writing a simple deployable web app in no time. Easier than I've ever known it, to the point I've helped non programmers get started with it and they can get productive with it pretty easily and deploy things for real use. Very few apps need to be distributed across hundreds of machines, but even there, there's so much tech available to make it pretty easy. No need to deal with the details of the nightmare that was RPC / DCOM / CORBA
  - throwaway2016a 9y ago
    Meteor just defers the problem until you need to scale. It is also pretty hard to do security well with Meteor (not impossible, it can be done effectively, just really easy to mess up if you don't pay attention). You also may be right about hundreds but a great many apps need to be distributed across more than two. Edit: also, for the record, as a millennial I did have to deal with DCOM. Although granted most are shielded from it.
    - 9y ago