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I don't understand this viewpoint at all. There's a breathtaking amount of tutorials, Q/A (stackoverflow), forums, chats, that can get someone started with a fr

I don't understand this viewpoint at all. There's a breathtaking amount of tutorials, Q/A (stackoverflow), forums, chats, that can get someone started with a fraction of the effort it took for me to learn programming 20 years ago. There are one-click installers for programming languages and for IDEs. There are entire free books online to learn specific languages or frameworks. I think people have gotten lazier and they expect to be taught, rather than seeking out materials. Or perhaps the people wishing to learn, are not as interested in programming as they think they are. That being said, yes, learning "cloud" is an enormous sink of time that requires some exposure to lots of different silos of information. Doesn't that make sense though? It's a complicated subject.

jonny_eh 9y ago
> I think people have gotten lazier My only response is this famous quote: "The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise"
- edmundhuber 9y ago
  Yeah, I realize how it sounds. Angry old man yells at cloud.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
    The quote you're responding to is also ~2,000 years old.
    - analog31 9y ago
      It may be more recent. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in-ancient-times/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-childre...
      - marcosdumay 9y ago
        So, it's a short paraphrase of what ancient people used to write? That's good enough to me, and way better than I expected.
      - jloughry 9y ago
        Socrates did complain about the invention of writing, in Plato's Phaedrus: "...an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."
  - Nelgraf 9y ago
    Your pun was underappreciated.
racl101 9y ago
As relatively young person I agree. Many people my age and/or younger expect quick results and don't really have the patience to see something through. But like with any other facet in life, if people take shortcuts they totally deprive themselves of vital experiences that are necessary for them in the long run if they want to experience any decent amount of success. Especially if they are wishing to learn something for their career. In other words, if your objective is to learn programming, how can you possibly hope to create or do anything more meaningful than trivial examples without challenging yourself to learn the environment nor learning howto import 3rd party software libraries so that you don't have to recreate the wheel? It's part and parcel of not doing anything trivial. Learning to be resourceful by visiting Q/A websites, forums, chats and asking questions, and trying things and failing and getting up and trying again just makes you better. You learn more by failure and experimentation than by following an example to a T but never venturing outside the sandbox.
- edmundhuber 9y ago
  I'm not that old, 33, but I think I recognize that I wasted a lot of my youth being paralyzed by the thought of failing, when really it is the most successful people who start out by failing. A lot. It is important to get comfortable with failing, and to separate one's failure in trying something from the thought of personal failure. That is "I failed because I need to learn more," versus "I failed because I'm not good enough."
  - veddox 9y ago
    Excellent life lesson! Never mind coding, that is one of the most important things we can teach our teenagers. (Not to deride coding, but you know what I mean.)
  - racl101 9y ago
    > I'm not that old, 33, but I think I recognize that I wasted a lot of my youth being paralyzed by the thought of failing, when really it is the most successful people who start out by failing Well said. Describes me as well.
veddox 9y ago
I don't think people per se have gotten lazier, but the fraction of the populace that wants to learn programming has increased. When the visibility of programming in society was small, the people who were attracted to it tended to bring along a very strong dedication to the task. As programming became more hip, more and more people were attracted to it, so the average level of determination sank...
kbwt 9y ago
> forums Every single forum I frequented "back in the days" (ca. 2004, vBulletin-style) is gone. These were forums that hosted intense/focused technical discussions, in a way that just doesn't seem to exist anymore, with very few exceptions. At least I cannot find anything comparable. Today, there is just Reddit/HN and everything else is mostly commercialized and/or dumbed-down content. Don't even get me started on "educational" youtube videos.
- sattoshi 9y ago
  As someone who learned his first programming languages from YouTube, I am interested in hearing what you think about educational videos.

jonny_eh 9y ago

> I think people have gotten lazier My only response is this famous quote: "The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise"

edmundhuber 9y ago
Yeah, I realize how it sounds. Angry old man yells at cloud.
- HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
  The quote you're responding to is also ~2,000 years old.
  - analog31 9y ago
    It may be more recent. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in-ancient-times/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-childre...
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      So, it's a short paraphrase of what ancient people used to write? That's good enough to me, and way better than I expected.
    - jloughry 9y ago
      Socrates did complain about the invention of writing, in Plato's Phaedrus: "...an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."
- Nelgraf 9y ago
  Your pun was underappreciated.

racl101 9y ago

As relatively young person I agree. Many people my age and/or younger expect quick results and don't really have the patience to see something through. But like with any other facet in life, if people take shortcuts they totally deprive themselves of vital experiences that are necessary for them in the long run if they want to experience any decent amount of success. Especially if they are wishing to learn something for their career. In other words, if your objective is to learn programming, how can you possibly hope to create or do anything more meaningful than trivial examples without challenging yourself to learn the environment nor learning howto import 3rd party software libraries so that you don't have to recreate the wheel? It's part and parcel of not doing anything trivial. Learning to be resourceful by visiting Q/A websites, forums, chats and asking questions, and trying things and failing and getting up and trying again just makes you better. You learn more by failure and experimentation than by following an example to a T but never venturing outside the sandbox.

edmundhuber 9y ago
I'm not that old, 33, but I think I recognize that I wasted a lot of my youth being paralyzed by the thought of failing, when really it is the most successful people who start out by failing. A lot. It is important to get comfortable with failing, and to separate one's failure in trying something from the thought of personal failure. That is "I failed because I need to learn more," versus "I failed because I'm not good enough."
- veddox 9y ago
  Excellent life lesson! Never mind coding, that is one of the most important things we can teach our teenagers. (Not to deride coding, but you know what I mean.)
- racl101 9y ago
  > I'm not that old, 33, but I think I recognize that I wasted a lot of my youth being paralyzed by the thought of failing, when really it is the most successful people who start out by failing Well said. Describes me as well.

veddox 9y ago

I don't think people per se have gotten lazier, but the fraction of the populace that wants to learn programming has increased. When the visibility of programming in society was small, the people who were attracted to it tended to bring along a very strong dedication to the task. As programming became more hip, more and more people were attracted to it, so the average level of determination sank...

kbwt 9y ago

> forums Every single forum I frequented "back in the days" (ca. 2004, vBulletin-style) is gone. These were forums that hosted intense/focused technical discussions, in a way that just doesn't seem to exist anymore, with very few exceptions. At least I cannot find anything comparable. Today, there is just Reddit/HN and everything else is mostly commercialized and/or dumbed-down content. Don't even get me started on "educational" youtube videos.

sattoshi 9y ago
As someone who learned his first programming languages from YouTube, I am interested in hearing what you think about educational videos.